Vax Hesitancy--Reasonable Or Not?

Is it reasonable to hesitate to allow people to inject gene therapy medications into your body? I want to present some material that addresses that question. There should be four links, but I'll try to keep most of this fairly brief. The final link will directly address the issue of Vaccine Hesitancy in exactly those terms. The first three links address the unusual nature of the Covid 'vaccines'. Some of these articles were sponsored by anti-vaxxing organizations, but the authors are by no means anti-vaxxers themselves--in fact, the final two articles feature scientists who have spent years in the field of vaccine development. For that reason, I hope that the views presented will be balanced.

So, first:

Could spike protein in Moderna, Pfizer vaccines cause blood clots, brain inflammation, and heart attacks?

Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist, warned the FDA in December that mRNA vaccines could cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in ways not assessed in safety trials.

If you've been following the Covid vaccine news you may have heard about blood clotting issues. However, for me the most interesting part of this article has to do with neurological problems associated with Covid-19 the disease. What researchers have been finding is neurological problems in the brains of Covid-19 sufferers, but a lack of any evidence of actual viral presence in the brain. Scientists are speculating that these problems--damage to organs remote from the actual site of Covid infection--are caused not by the virus per se but by the famous "spike protein" (S-protein) alone. 

That's me summarizing. Here's an excerpt from the article that should provide a succinct idea of the reason concerns are rising regarding the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaxxes. As you'll see, these discussions are taking place in what could be called "medical establishment" journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine--not just at anti-vaxxing sites:

Russia Stuff And Our Corrupt Rulers

This is all very depressing to see--the utter mendaciousness of our ruling class: elected representatives of the American people, appointees, the military establishment, the intelligence community, and last but far from least, the media. The corruption is so sweeping that you're left almost breathless. And they're utterly feckless, to boot.

Let's start with Gilbert Doctorow--Bombast From Washington: Joe Biden’s Russia Sanctions. Doctorow first explains that nobody who understands the current shape of the world is taking those sanctions seriously. Putin himself is obviously unfazed. The DC armchair imperialists have crossed a red line, and Putin has responded--as Doctorow explains in a Postscript to his original article:

The Deep State Strikes Back

Last night I read at Hans Mahncke's twitter feed about a WaPo article about Kash Patel, Devin Nunes' lead investigator who rose to become a key figure in the intelligence structure during the last months of President Trump's administration--at the NSC, ODNI, and DoD. Patel is being targeted by the Deep State for supposed leaks in an article by Aaron Maté at RealClear Investigations (February 25, 2021): In Final Days, Trump Gave Up on Forcing Release of Russiagate Files, Nunes Prober Says. 

For whatever reason I'm unable to access Twitter this morning (but see below). As I recall, Mahncke focused on the key role that Bluto Barr played in pressuring Trump not to declassify and release the most damaging documents that would disclose the full extent of Deep State criminality--both against Trump but more generally with regard to domestic spying. 

Sundance has a fairly comprehensive account of this story--the targeting of Patel and the significance of it--this morning. Like Mahncke, sundance highlights the key role of Barr in this disgraceful episode, which is still playing out. Barr, of course, is one of the ultimate insiders and knew full well that the Deep State would seek revenge against patriots like Patel--as an object lesson to others to back off from any attempts to expose Deep State criminality. This makes his own role all the more reprehensible.

Buried Lead – Washington Post Outlines AG Barr As Key Figure Who Blocked Declassification of Spygate Documents

We all know the Deep State national security state--the Intelligence Community (especially CIA, FBI, and NSA) in cooperation with DoJ, DoS, DoD,and other agencies--has been growing in power and influence since World War Two. However, this growth has metastasized in the wake of 9/11 to the point that we see today, defying the authority of the elected president of the United States and cowing the Congress and SCOTUS into submission. 

The Answer Seems To Be 'No'

Here's one that I was puzzling over yesterday, but I got the answer and learned my lesson.

Many of you will know that the big story for some time in Chicago has been the police shooting of a 13 year old Mexican boy. His mother says she loved him and all that, but he was out at 3AM and she hadn't seem him for several days. Who says school lockdowns save lives? Well, talk to the Chicago (government) Teachers Union about that. We know he wasn't doing his homework. He was out running around with a gun and was apparently nicknamed 'Li'l Homicide', whatever that means.

But then at a certain point the mother just shut up. Which suggests that she'd been threatened by a gang--at least that's the suggestion I came away with.

Anyway, the video of the shooting was finally released and some people thought that there'd be massive riots. I was skeptical--and so was Steve Sailer.

So, Will BLM Riot Over a Mexican Tonight in Chicago?

...

It will be interesting to see if there will be a riot over this, and if so, who will do the rioting? Does BLM think this is an example of evil White Supremacy that they care about. Or is it racist to say that “Mexican lives matter,” just like it is racist to say “all lives matter” (and unthinkable to say that “white lives matter”)?

Or do “Person of Color Lives Matter?”

And will Antifa in Portand and Seattle riot over Mexican lives mattering?

I’m clueless.

...

So the answer was, No. There was a small, actually (as opposed to 'mostly') peaceful protest in Millennium Park. That was it. Lesson learned.

GOP Enthusiastic Over Nadler's SCOTUS Packing Bill

You can read some good coverage on this issue at Red State. Earlier on the first post today I linked to Thomas Lifson explaining why Nadler's surprise move is a sign of Dem desperation--they see continuing and even increasing disasters for the Zhou Baiden regime. That's the only rational explanation for not waiting for Zhou's "Commission" to even meet. At Red State Brandon Morse addresses this:

Dems Unveil Plan to Pack the Supreme Court but Republicans Can't Wait for Them to Try

The reason for GOP enthusiasm is totally obvious: This is an incredible surefire win for the GOP going into Election 2022. Pelosi has only two votes to spare in her House--will that fail? It just may, and that signals the type of existential desperation that Daniel McCarthy talks about:

The Democratic party is dying. That may be hard to believe since Democrats control both houses of Congress and won the last presidential election with a record 81 million votes. But the exiguous margins of their hold on the House and Senate, with fewer than 51 percent of the seats in either chamber, tell another story, as does the desperation of their struggle to abolish the filibuster and federalize election law.

Those policy aims are of a piece with dreams of packing the Supreme Court — and packing the Senate too, by admitting tiny Democratic bastions as new states. The left wing of the party even assails the constitutional principle behind the Senate itself, the idea of equal representation of the states.

Simply put, Democrats know they can no longer win by the old agreed-upon rules, constitutional or otherwise. ...

So, the Dem schemes, says McCarthy are a sign of weakness--not strength. Before you argue against him, consider that the polling is strongly against the Dems on this SCOTUS issue. The GOP would not be so openly elated if they didn't know this too:

Important: Amazon Reverses Some Book Bans

From the Christian Post via FR--Amazon reverses ban on book helping parents rescue kids from transgenderism after pushback:

The online retail giant blocked the book Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult by Maria Keffler, the co-founder of the recently-formed Partners for Ethical Care, from being sold on its platform six days after its publication.

The book's removal comes on the heels of a similar move earlier this year when Amazon scrubbed scholar Ryan Anderson's book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, which had until recently been allowed on the platform since its initial publication in 2018. Last summer, Amazon also prohibited the publisher of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by journalist Abigail Shrier from purchasing ads to promote the book.

Keffler told The Christian Post in a phone interview on Wednesday that she wasn't surprised Amazon blocked her book, though she had hoped it would last longer than six days.

"We fully expected it to happen. We knew it was going to. We decided to launch it on multiple platforms because we expected it to be canceled. And so that's why we also put it on Smashwords as well as Lulu, a print platform," Keffler said.

Shortly after CP's interview with Keffler Wednesday, the author said that the online retailer sent her an email, which she shared with CP, explaining that the scrubbing of the book was an "error." The Kindle version went live and the paperback version should be reactivated soon. Amazon had previously told her that the book had violated their terms of service, which she challenged.

In a subsequent email to CP, Keffler said it was possible that "a calling and emailing onslaught may have affected the outcome" as "lots and lots of people were contacting Amazon to complain."

I checked at Amazon. When Harry Became Sally isn't available, but the other two are. There's more at the link.

The importance of this is a reminder to avoid defeatism. 

UPDATED: The Zhou Regime Blinks

It was pretty clear from the beginning that the Zhou Baiden regime's decision to use the hapless Ukraine to push Putin around and bend him to the Zhou regime's will was going to end badly. That seems official now. After all the belligerent rhetoric emanating from the Deep State someone--probably Putin--seems to have convinced the regime that they were painting themselves into a corner. Given that all the escalation was a result of mouthing off on the part of the Zhou regime directed at Russia, this is clearly a humiliating climb down. Ray McGovern covers this:

Baiden and Blinken Blink on Ukraine

President Zhou Baiden has now taken a waiver on the "unwavering", full-throated support that he, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had been giving to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The recurring "unwavering" meme was played right up until late Tuesday after Baiden’s telephone talk with Putin Tuesday.

Zelensky’ earlier profession was comedy. But what serious people saw in his decree three weeks ago (March 24) was a de facto declaration of war on Russia. With that decree, it became the official policy of Ukraine to take Crimea back from Russia. Kiev began to dispatch by rail tons of military equipment headed south and east. And Russia did the same – south and west to Crimea, and to the Donbass where armed clashes have increased between the Ukrainian regime and anti-coup-regime forces (dubbed "pro-Russian separatists" by western media) determined to preserve a degree of autonomy.

With strong rhetorical support from the U.S. and NATO, the Ukrainian regime seemed eager to let slip the dogs of war. Then someone – whether in Washington or Moscow, or both – apparently told Zelensky that "unwavering" rhetoric was not going to protect him from disaster, should he tweak too tightly the nose of the Russian bear. On April 9, Zelensky used his Facebook page to call off the dogs of war and stress the need to establish a new truce in the Donbass. Earlier that day the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces had said that the use of force to "liberate" the Donbass is unacceptable, since Ukraine "puts the lives of its citizens in first place", and civilian as well as military casualties would be massive.

That's rather remarkable, isn't it? The CinC of Ukraine's military made a public statement to the effect of: For God's sake, Zelensky, stop acting like a Neocon puppet because you do not have our support. Talk about being chopped off at the knees! Zelensky is revealed to the world as pretty much a president in name only. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, Ukraine itself is revealed--for anyone with any lingering doubts--to be a US puppet that's being manipulated by an incompetent or mad puppet master. The stuff about NATO? Please. They're simply the DC Deep State's poodle, but you can bet that they, too, were sending some borderline hysterical messaging to DC to back off.

Email Notifications

I just got this message from Google. As I understand it, beginning in July the email subscription/notification feature will no longer work. As a result, readers who use that feature will need to adjust:

FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner) is going away 
You are receiving this information because your blog uses the FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner).  

Recently, the Feedburner team released a system update announcement , that the email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021.  

After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported. If you’d like to continue sending emails, you can download your subscriber contacts. Learn how

I haven't read further or "Learned How," so I'm not sure how or whether I'll address this

UPDATED: Is This One Way?

Fire, meet gasoline:

Obama urges Americans to ‘confront historical inequities,’ after fatal Daunte Wright police shooting | Just The News https://t.co/5FNhJCUgMT

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) April 13, 2021

It's not totally clear to me how "historical inequities" enter into a police officer confusing their taser gun with their service handgun. Nevertheless, we now learn that the mayor of Brooklyn Center has found one way to immediately address "historical inequities"--or something like that:

Black City Manager Fired For Saying Officer Who Shot Daunte Wright Deserves ‘Due Process’

Effective immediately our city manager has been relieved of his duties, and the deputy city manager will be assuming his duties moving forward. I will continue to work my hardest to ensure good leadership at all levels of our city government.

— Mayor Mike Elliott (@mayor_elliott) April 12, 2021

Now, here's a thought. Is there a difference between an "historical" and an "historic" inequity--or can one incident be both? If the two are different, should they be treated differently--and if so why? Here's what I'm getting at.

In Bull Durham News

You've probably seen some of the stories that are floating around about Bull Durham. He's issuing subpoena's to Brookings--OMG! He's suspicious about the FBI's turning a blind eye to Chris Steele's use of Igor Danchenko as a primary source--Holy Cow!

If this excites you, I recommend Shipwreckedcrew's article:

Russian Hoax Prosecutor John Durham Issues Subpoena to Democrat Party Think Tank "Brookings Institute"

For my money, I'm still not impressed. SWC notes--way at the end of his article:

The continued use of information from Danchenko has always been a huge “red-flag” problem in my review of the FBI’s conduct.  There was simply too much information known to the FBI by December 2016 and January 2017 to press forward with the investigation while continuing to rely on earlier judgments that there was some substance to the Russia Hoax allegations.

Guess what? That information was also known to IG Michael Horowitz very early on in his investigation. Did Horowitz really just sit on that information until his report came out in December, 2019--no heads up to Bull Durham or Bluto Barr? I find that hard to believe. Anyway, what stood in the way of the incredibly competent and legendarily aggressive Dynamic Duo finding out that really basic information on their own? Nothing that I can think of. For example, couldn't they have asked Kevin Clinesmith about sources for the Dossier? Or any of several other FBI employees? And yet ...

Durham didn't issue a subpoena to Danchenko's employer, the Brookings Institute, until ... December 2020? A year after Horowitz's report came out? Puh-leeze! Look--if that had been my case I would have served Brookings with a subpoena for all documentation regarding Danchenko the day after I found out he was Steele's source--maybe even the same day. From where I'm sitting, none of this passes the sniff test. Were they investigating or were they not? What's so hard about issuing subpoenas for documents? Delays due to Covid? What BS. And now SWC thinks that Durham will try to flip Danchenko? Sounds to me that, now, in 2021, Durham is just getting started. So what was all the BS Barr was putting out about the supposed investigation?

ADDENDUM: Yeah, I can see this:

a wise and disturbing comment. Except that it's not only possible but likely that they make a soft deal with Danchenko which requires him to be quiet. Avoids a trial, avoids disclosure and everything ends up concealed. https://t.co/mtGnJuZ9B5

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 13, 2021

Also this:

Danchenko is a red herring. The Dossier was Glenn Simpson's idea, not Steele, not Igor. Simpson and Fritsch pitched the entire concept to Marc Elias in March, months before anyone "knew" "Russia" had "hacked the DNC". That's the important point.https://t.co/swAukSZHWN

— Ombudsman4Truth (@ombudsman4truth) April 12, 2021

It's just so hard for me to believe at this point that Durham is really trying to get the big story out. We all know what it was about, and it's taken Durham over a year to get just very, very basic records? C'mon, man!

Conrad Black's Tour de Force

Today Conrad Black has an outstanding take-down of the WSJ's foolish anti-Trump editorial (on Friday). The WSJ editorial is titled "The GOP's Trump Problem"--see, Trump is the problem. Black responds with some heavy artillery of his own:

The GOP’s Trump Solution

At some point, the former Republican establishment will have to familiarize itself with the consequences of being defeated by Donald Trump within its own party.

Black covers a lot of ground. I'll try to summarize the main points, while urging readers to follow the link--you won't regret it. Black talks turkey, explains the facts of political life in lucid terms.

Black's basic thesis is that the WSJ has things exactly backwards. Trump is not the problem for the GOP. Rather, the Never Trumps are the problem. Trump had a remarkably successful term, especially in light of the constant betrayals and the concerted Dem and Deep State assault on our constitutional order. The reality, contrary to the WSJ's view, is that Republicans want more of the Trump agenda--whether led by Trump himself or by a Trump approved proxy. In fact, the disastrous start and likely deepening national crisis we are experiencing under the Zhou Baiden regime (whoever or what cabal actually is pulling the strings) favor this solution for the GOP, in Black's view:

Who's Afraid Of Covid?

Spoiler: It's young people.

It's a Covid day, and this story from the Epoch Times (which I picked up through Zerohedge) is rather fascinating. The article is based off a YouGov poll that you can read about here. What the Epoch Times author did was to inquire into what lies behind the seemingly contra indicated results of the YouGov poll:

Why Young Adults Are The Most Scared Of COVID, Even Though They Are The Least At Risk

Back when I was in the waning years of my working life, we old timers (I was in my 50s then) were constantly being told that the Bureau would be hiring large numbers of "computer savvy young people" to lead the FBI into the brave new digital world of law enforcement. I was pretty unimpressed with these supposedly "computer savvy" youngsters--their savviness usually extended to using electronic gadgets like cell phones, but did not extend to critical analysis of the vast amounts of data made available on the internet. Nor was I able to see much interest in learning. It was old timers who seemed more interested in the implications of understanding how data is collected and used.

Sorry if I bored you with that, but it seems to play into the YouGov results. Here's what YouGov found: