Month: September 2021

We need to deep-dive into the dynamics of Facebook

With an exponential upsurge in “cancel culture”, which has been called a highly-developed Marxist weapon, it is now the main go-to operational method utilized by America’s political power-brokers on the left. But for a lock-step alignment with what has, for all intents and purposes, morphed into the Mockingbird Media, its effects would be negligible.

Basically, its end goal is to stifle freedom of speech; the cornerstone of which individualism and liberty rests.

Thankfully and concomitantly, millions have awakened. Sleeping giants. Rest assured, it is this awakening which has drawn a bulls-eye around social media giants, that is, with Facebook in the direct cross-hairs.

Indeed, it is the defacto internet since nearly every site connects to it. Whither it goes, so too does the rest. Trust, akin to cascading dominoes, a knock-on effect will reverberate across Silicon Valley. Effectively, the main arbiters of social discourse will be forced – albeit, kicking and screaming – to act like responsible corporate citizens.

To said end, this investigative journalist continues to shine a spotlight, with laser precision focus, on the goings-on at Facebook – some of which have been featured at Israel National News. As such, it is a valuable read. It should serve as a staging ground for the investigative findings documented within The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), as cited below. As evidenced at the above link, coupled with the heavy-lifting at WSJ, Facebook is octopus-like!

With well-rehearsed appearances by CEO Mark Zuckerberg – and top-level minions in tow, at what has become ritualistic, toothless Congressional hearings – due diligence mandates regular monitoring and collaborative efforts to catch themn in the act. In some way, deep access outside the public domain was gained. But it is also the case that a paltry few – who are in no way associated within – are working on the very same directional targets. Most journalists are too cowed and bowed to even bring up the subject, let alone, to investigate.

In this regard, it came as a surprise that the very same underlying investigation in process at this end already made its debut via Jeff Horwitz at WSJ. Even more so, in not one, but two formats! They include: The Facebook Files, Part One, the podcast, and its article counterpart, The Facebook Files, Part One.

And having spent months examining a plethora of privileged documents with my team, much of our pin-pointed analysis mirrors theirs. If anything, we find ourselves in good investigative company.

While well aware of Horwitz’s past efforts regarding deep-dives into the internal dynamics at Facebook, it is no shame in admitting: this time, he beat us to the punch! This is a considerable feat. Reportedly, he has been on the hunt for two and a half years, comparative to ten plus years at this end. To be sure, he has at his disposal the backing of WSJ.

But prior to examining Horwitz’s excerpted corroborative findings here, let it be noted: they are beyond significant and explosive. And the core conclusions are directly (or indirectly) of piece with those found within my book, published August 31, 2016.

Throughout the years – either housed within numerous exposes’ or an entire book replete with bullet-proof evidence – the multi-faceted dangers have proven to be one and the same; having metastasized in the process and they are now supported by Horwitz’s findings. Among a host of others, in no order of magnitude, the top three alarm bells found by my team are:

– Facebook seems to wilfully intend to deceive and mislead billions of people. Its top decision-makers (despite warnings from some of Facebook’s lead computer scientists, “code monkeys”, if you will, having pointed out the platform’s “fatal flaws”) do the same.

The masses are sent down wildly dangerous, blind alleyways. This is so, be it in the terrorist arena of Islamic jihad; human traffickers/sexual predators on the prowl; overall national security imperatives; pressing health and welfare concerns; explosive events on America’s domestic front, and a host of major fault-lines in between.

– Facebook seems to ensure that “protective” status and privileges are given to powerful players, a/k/a elitists, and ideological bed-fellows, that is, at the expense of average citizens. Meanwhile, Facebook censors all those who dare to dissent from their leftist orthodoxy – doing so via “BAN and BOOM” hammer-blows. Aside from that, countless users who depend upon the platform for their business interests have been driven into bankruptcy and related downward spirals.

– Black-listing those who refuse to carry water for a strictly enforced ideological narrative is a central imperative for Facebook hierarchy. In turn, preferential “political white-lists” (having nothing to do with the white race) must be adhered to.

Without further ado, the following are, word-for-word, integral highlights from The Facebook Files, Part One

– Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said Facebook Inc. allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame.

– However, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The program, known as “cross check” or “XCheck,” was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists.

Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process, the documents show.

Some users are “whitelisted”—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.

– At times, the documents show, XCheck has protected public figures whose posts contain violations that would typically lead to sanctions for regular users.

– “We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. It called the company’s actions “a breach of trust” and added: “Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences.”

– The documents that describe XCheck are part of an extensive array of internal Facebook communications reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. They show that Facebook knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands.

– “We are knowingly exposing users to misinformation that we have the processes and resources to mitigate,” said a 2019 memo by Facebook researchers, called “The Political Whitelist Contradicts Facebook’s Core Stated Principles.” Technology website The Information previously reported on the document.

-“FB’s decision-making on content policy is influenced by political considerations,” wrote an economist in the company’s data-science division.

“Separate content policy from public policy,” recommended a lead engineer for Facebook’s civic integrity team, in a June 2020 memo.

In no uncertain terms, regardless of “who’s on first” (again, a thumbs up to Horwitz and his team from mine!), Facebook has morphed into a clear and present danger to what is left of civilized society.

Most significantly, it must be understood: unless and until this octopus-like phenomenon is halted – starting with removing its shield and cover; which is housed under the Congressional umbrella of Section 230 – the dangers evidenced and exposed within will appear as child’s play, in comparison to what lies ahead.

Source: Adina Kutnicki – Arutz Sheva

From Syria to Afghanistan, the Pentagon really is ‘chronically bad’ at winning wars – and Matt Gaetz got them to admit it

It really took a Florida man to get the current Pentagon boss to admit inability to deal with the essential job of the military, and remind Americans that he was behind the failed scheme to arm the “moderate rebels” in Syria.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, and Central Command head General Kenneth McKenzie proved much more adept at dodging questions from senators and congressmen over the past two days, than at fighting and winning wars abroad.

That is, until they ran into Trumpian firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida). The ensuing five-minute skirmish in the halls of the House of Representatives on Wednesday was so explosive, even C-SPAN featured it on social networks.

Are you capable of assessing whether another has the will to fight?” Gaetz asked Austin, to which the Biden cabinet official replied, “No, we’re not.”

Austin was obviously trying to explain why neither he nor his generals were able to foresee the collapse of the US-backed Afghan National Army, which basically surrendered to the advancing Taliban even before US and NATO troops left Afghanistan in August. Yet he seemed unaware that he just admitted to their utter inability to do their job, i.e. successfully fight wars.

The basic postulate of US military theory is that all war is decided by willpower, namely “breaking the enemy’s will to fight while sustaining one’s own.”

How exactly would one imagine winning, if he can’t assess the enemy’s will to fight?

Austin, himself a retired US Army general, basically walked into an ambush he should have seen from a mile away.

He only got worked up when Gaetz did what no other member of Congress thought to do in the two days of hearings: bring up Austin’s failure in Syria. As the Florida congressman pointed out, Austin was the head of CENTCOM back in 2015, when he admitted to Congress that some $48 million was wasted on training “moderate rebels” against the government in Damascus.

“We’re talking four or five,” was Austin’s response to the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2015, when he was asked how many militants the program managed to train, ostensibly to fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists.

The Obama administration had earmarked $500 million for the program in 2015, and requested $600 million for 2016, with the goal of training 5,000 fighters a year. A Pentagon official testifying alongside Austin had said about 200 fighters were in the program at the time, prompting then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) to describe it as “a total failure.”

About a week later, it emerged that a 70-strong group of US-trained fighters had surrendered to Al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria – along with all of their weapons and equipment.

“It just seems like you’re chronically bad at this,” Gaetz told Austin.

Confronted with the reminder of his failure in Syria, Austin claimed that the program was actually a success, because it “stood up” the Syrian Democratic Forces, which were “very instrumental in turning the tide of battle” in Syria.

Sure, they failed completely at overthrowing the government in Damascus, but “the focus was ISIS” and “those forces had a significant effect on the ISIS network,” Austin argued, raising his voice.

There are two problems with this:

The SDF publicly announced its existence on October 12, 2015 – just days after the State Department said that parts of the training and equipment program were getting “shelved” and the US efforts would be redirected to unspecified “groups that are in Syria now and have proven competent against [ISIS].”

To use the same level of hair-splitting as corporate fact-checkers, the SDF was the result of a different program, and their success doesn’t excuse Austin’s prior failure.

The second problem is Austin’s dismissal of the SDF role in defeating IS. For years, the Pentagon and the US media told the world these people did the lion’s share of the fighting, basically all the ground operations in eastern Syria, including the capture of the IS “capital” of Raqqa – with US air support and special forces assistance, of course.

Now Austin calls them a US proxy force that was merely “very instrumental” in having a “significant effect on the ISIS network.” Well, which is it? Surely the SDF leaders would love to know.

Also interesting is that no one had asked Austin about any of this in January, when he moved from the board of missile-maker Raytheon to serve in the Biden administration. And so, after wasting tens of millions of dollars arming jihadists in Syria, the Pentagon ended up writing off $83 billion it had spent on propping up the Afghan military over the course of 20 years. Predictably, corporate fact-checkers responded by quibbling that actually, not all of it amounted to weapons that ended up in Taliban hands.

The reason the generals like Austin and Milley seem “happy failing up,” as Gaetz phrased it, is because the Washington establishment – both parties and the corporate media – doesn’t really demand accountability for failure, so long as they can keep the taxpayer dollars flowing. That’s the only war they seem to know how to win.

Source: Nebojsa Malic – RT

The COVID Caste System

Commentary

Caste systems aren’t merely unjust; they are also ugly to behold. Commenting to me once on India’s caste system, when I was a child, my father said, “People in this country still use the word ‘untouchable,’ which is if you think about it a very unlovely term.”

While India’s caste system persists despite being outlawed, America traditionally hasn’t had a caste system.

Until now.

We can see emerging, right here in America, a sharp divide between progressive elites and ordinary citizens.

This divide can be seen in multiple areas. Progressive elites have high walls protecting their homes, even as they declare that “walls don’t work.” They have private security, even as they insist Americans don’t need guns to protect themselves. They somehow elude accountability even when they break the same laws that get ordinary citizens into major trouble.

Nowhere, however, is the new American caste system more evident than with COVID-19. Did you see Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) at the Met Gala? The publicity focused on her “Tax the Rich” dress, but just as notable was the video, released by Vogue magazine, of AOC in full Cinderella mode, flanked by multiple attendants, straightening her hair, fixing her dress, holding up the long train, adjusting her heels. They were all masked; she was not.

This was hardly an isolated case.

Shortly before the Met Gala, the Obamas held a massive party to celebrate Barack Obama’s 60th birthday.

Again, the guests that included political leaders, business moguls, and Hollywood celebrities were all unmasked. The chefs, the servers, the valets, and the other staff were all masked. An upper caste and a lower caste, both playing their roles in Obama’s large tent.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, also just had a birthday, and video showed a small, unventilated room in which Jayapal and her maskless friends all partied together. It was the same story with San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who violated her own mask mandate while partying at a club.

“I was feeling the spirit,” she explained, “and I wasn’t thinking about a mask.”

The Emmys, too, featured clip after clip of unmasked actors, producers, and directors walking the press photo line, and only when they crossed over to the other side could you see all the staff and attendants, masked, of course, taking them back to their seats. Asked about this double standard, Los Angeles County’s Health Department put out a statement saying that mask “exceptions are made for film, television and music productions,” because “persons appearing on the show are considered performers.” The virus, evidently, has no interest in infecting “performers.”

To understand what’s going on in its widest significance, consider the true meaning of the famous phrase in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”

What does this phrase mean? At one level, certainly, it means that we enjoy equality of rights. The Constitution goes on to specify not merely equality of rights but also equal treatment under the law.

This concept of equality of rights shouldn’t, as Abraham Lincoln emphasized, be confused with equality of outcomes. Human beings are obviously unequal in height, in speed, in beauty, in intelligence, even in moral character. An equal start in the race doesn’t mean, obviously, that all individuals or even all groups must hit the finishing tape at the same time.

Yet at the same time, there’s a broader meaning to the equality provision that goes beyond rights.

We aren’t merely equal as human beings, we are “created” equal.

This means that we are equally the children of God, and it follows from this that God loves us equally and therefore there’s an equal dignity in persons that derives, ultimately, from the fact that they’re created by a transcendent God.

How does this equal dignity play out in American life? It simply means that someone—say Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates—might have more money than you or me, but they aren’t better than you or me. In America, we have maids but not servants, and in many restaurants, we call even the waiter “sir,” as if he were a knight. The political philosopher Irving Kristol once said there’s no restaurant in America to which a CEO could go in the absolute assurance that he wouldn’t also find his secretary dining there.

So the Declaration of Independence affirms a social equality that is the very antithesis of a caste system.

Yet precisely what our founding documents reject, the progressive elite, mostly made up of Democrats, is attempting to create for the first time in America a society divided into an elite upper caste and a mass lower caste, with separate rules applying to each group, in accordance with their caste status.

It’s unlovely. It’s downright ugly. It’s also immoral. And it’s certainly un-American.

Source: Dinesh D’Souza – THE EPOCH TIMES

Fox guarding the henhouse? Yes, indeed!

The compulsion to find out whether the Wu Flu started in the Wuhan lab, and at whose behest the research was done, has been almost as strong as the desperate drive to stop anyone from finding the answer.

On Sunday Morning Futures, Maria Bartiromo discussed this with Devin Nunes, wishing for the answer. Concurrently with watching the show, I opened my email and found a link from Alex Berenson to the March 24, 2018 document outlining the gain of function research.

The document is a detailed description of the proposed research, complete with a chart of expected milestones (page 31). Page 10 has an easy, colorful chart (unlike the density of the verbiage) showing us laypeople what they intend.

Page 22 shows a management plan, divided into Host-pathogen prediction and Intervention development stages. This one document is the “holy s—!” origin proof.

Notice that Peter Daszak wrote it. Besides being the head of EcoHealth Alliance, which proposed and arranged for the research in Wuhan, he was the only U.S. representative in the WHO’s investigation of…COVID’s origins — the same man oft-quoted as saying there is “NO evidence” that the lab leak theory is true.

Daszak has ties to Fauci. Before this research started, Fauci provided $600,000 to the Wuhan lab supporting it. That information was obfuscated, and emails between the two were redacted but finally released in July.

I think if I were to put together a Venn diagram of COVID, the central connector would be one Dr. Fauci. He funded EcoHealth Alliance, which funded and administered the Wuhan research. Fauci also has close ties to Moderna, including the fact that NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), which he’s chaired since 1984, funded the Moderna trial.

He pushed Remdesivir, an expensive drug that didn’t work to cure COVID patients. And he was a key player in denigrating and banning hydroxychloroquine, the first cheap, easily obtainable drug that worked to stop COVID’s progress.

Fauci’s been at it a long time, and there’s a world of history to follow if you want. His wife, Christine Grady, heads the department of bioethics at the NIH (National Institutes of Health). You know, the body that presides over the ethical questions of testing vaccines.

I could go on, but I want to get to my “part two.” After plowing through the Daszak document (I admit I have an unhealthy inability to stay awake when reading scientific papers, but I got enough to know it’s real), I listened to Dr. Scott Atlas in a lengthy interview the Epoch Times sponsored. It’s an hour you won’t regret if you have the time.

Atlas, who you may remember served briefly on Trump’s advisory committee on COVID, has a book, A Plague upon Our House, coming out in November. He’s a measured, reasoned voice. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he talks about the ethics of vaccinating children and the unknown long-term effects of the vaccines.

Atlas makes a lot of good points. He talks about the politicization of virus and vaccines as a mistake. Starting around minute 23, he talks about the heart inflammation issues in young males. He talks about censorship and how it has destroyed our trust in professors and doctors. If you can’t listen to the whole thing, I recommend picking up at minute 23 and listening for the next 10 minutes or so. His ethical questions about using our children as shields for our own health are logical and impactful. You may find yourself going back and listening from the beginning.

We now know beyond a doubt that the whole pandemic has been mishandled, and is continuing to be mishandled, in the U.S. and elsewhere. We also can see alternative approaches: Norway, for instance, just decreed that normal life should resume, downgrading the pandemic to an endemic problem, meaning something that will always be with us, like the flu.

It’s time to take a critical look at our COVID response and then to change it drastically. With no leadership from the top, this may be impossible.

Dr. Fauci is still the voice of COVID USA. He’s had his hand in every aspect of the virus, from creating it to masking us, shutting society, and resisting early treatment, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. His current stance, that everyone should be vaccinated regardless of age, health status, or previous COVID infection, is destructive to our lives and economy.

Far from being the face of our public health, Fauci is the face of destruction. It’s time he was indicted, not extolled.

It’s also time we stood up and said “no” as loudly as possible — no to vaccinating our children, no to mandates, no to masks, and no to all the rules that keep us from living free lives. The more of us do that, the faster this will end.

Source: Terry Paulding – American Thinker

Birth of rare Arabian leopard cub offers hope for species

A rare Arabian leopard cub has been born, fueling hope for the survival of one of the world’s most critically endangered animal species, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) reported.

It is thought that only 200 of the smallest member of the leopard family remain in the wild after centuries of habitat loss and human conflict.

The female cub was born in April at the Arabian Leopard Breeding Center in Taif, Saudi Arabia as part of a special breeding program run by the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU). The cub’s gender identification and first health check took place in July, and her birth is now being revealed to the world.

RCU is transforming a vast the vast wildernesses of the AlUla area in north-west Saudi Arabia, with 80% becoming nature reserves with habitats specifically designed to allow the Arabian leopard to thrive.

The RCU plans to increase the leopard’s numbers through its captive-breeding program before re-introducing more of the species into the wild at AlUla. A crucial part of the plan will see a build-up of the Arabian leopard’s prey, including Nubian ibex, red-necked ostrich, and Idmi gazelles.

Among many other Arabian leopard Initiatives, the RCU is expanding the breeding program with the opening of a new state-of-the-art center in early 2024 as part of Sharaan Nature Reserve in the AlUla region, while also donating US$25 million towards the new Arabian Leopard Fund.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature says the species is “critically endangered,” which means it is at an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, where it is only believed to now exist in three countries: Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen.

Known as as An Nimr Al ’Arabi’ in Arabic, the Arabian leopard has long represented beauty, tranquility, physical strength, fearlessness and freedom, and has held a special place in the imagination for millennia, featuring in ancient rock art, stories and even everyday expressions.

It arrived in Arabia almost 500,000 years ago when it emerged out of Africa and despite originally being a mountain animal it became the only true desert leopard as desertification spread over a period of centuries.

Cubs are born after a gestation period of 13 weeks, with one or two cubs in a typical litter. Cubs stay in the den during the first weeks of life. After the suckling period has finished, their mother leads them to kills and teaches them to hunt. They remain for their mother with a year or more – until they are ready to fend for themselves.

The Arabian leopard is the smallest member of the leopard family.

Its top weight of about 30kg is half that of its African cousin.

It arrived in Arabia almost 500,000 years ago when it emerged out of Africa, journeying either via the Great Rift Valley to reach the mountains of Jordan and Israel in the north or via the Gate of Tears to arrive in Yemen in the south. Originally it was a mountain animal but as desertification spread over a period of centuries, it became the only true desert leopard.

Historically its diet included the Nubian ibex, a type of mountain goat; the Arabian tahr, also a goat-like creature; the diminutive rock hyrax; and when these were not to be found it would eat partridge, hares, hedgehogs, beetles and even porcupines. Unlike the cheetah that relies on speed, the leopard is a stalk-and-pounce predator. Its slender build with an elongated body, short but powerful legs, and very long tail, used for balance, make it the perfect hunter in the mountains where it stalks to within a few meters of its quarry before pouncing. The black rosettes of its coat serve as camouflage, melting into the shadows as it pads along.

One of the earliest depictions of the leopard (500 BCE), in alabaster, is from the very ancient Sabaean Kingdom believed to be the biblical land of Sheba. It showed a leopard jumping down from rocks onto the back of an ibex. Leopards from northern Arabia, or Arabia Petraea, caught the Romans’ attention and were among the first exotic animals brought to ancient Rome to fight the bestiarii – gladiators trained in fighting wild beasts.

Located 1,100km from Riyadh in north-west Saudi Arabia, AlUla is a place of extraordinary natural and human heritage. The vast area, covering 22,561km², includes a lush oasis valley, towering sandstone mountains and ancient cultural heritage sites dating back thousands of years.

The most well-known and recognized site in AlUla is Hegra, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site. A 52-hectare ancient city, Hegra was the principal southern city of the Nabataean Kingdom and is comprised of nearly 100 well-preserved tombs with elaborate facades cut into sandstone outcrops. Current research suggests Hegra was the most southern outpost of the Romans after conquering the Nabataeans in 106 CE.

In addition to Hegra, AlUla is home to a series of fascinating historical and archaeological sites such as: an Old Town surrounded by an ancient oasis; Dadan, the capital of the Dadan and Lihyan Kingdoms, which is considered one of the most developed 1st-millennium BCE cities of the Arabian Peninsula; thousands of ancient rock art sites and inscriptions in Jabal Ikmah; and Hijaz Railway stations.

Source: Arutz Sheva

Corruption Found in COVID Origins Investigation

• In February 2020, a group of virologists published a letter in The Lancet, stating they “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” and calling the lab leak theory a conspiracy
• Twenty-six of them had ties to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which is at the heart of the controversy over its gain-of-function (GOF) research using bat coronaviruses
• The heavy conflicts were revealed by an investigation by The Daily Telegraph newspaper and confirm the questions many experts have raised over the paper’s credibility and motives
• Signatory Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance president, is a name that comes up often, because Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance funded controversial gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
• Signatory Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, published work with the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, George Gao, Ph.D., who he refers to as an “old friend”
• John Mackenzie, a tropical infectious disease expert at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, was a signatory on The Lancet paper, but he did not disclose that he was also a committee member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Several of The Lancet paper’s original signatories have reversed their positions and are now calling for a full investigation into COVID-19’s origins

Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? It’s one of the most relevant and hotly debated questions of our time, yet investigations that may reveal its answer appear to have been doomed from the start.

In February 2020, a group of virologists published a letter in The Lancet, stating they “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” and calling the lab leak theory a conspiracy, adding, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

The Lancet paper was instrumental in stymying open debate about whether SAR-Cov-2 leaked from a lab and resulted in those who challenged the natural origin theory being labeled as conspiracy theorists.

“All debate into whether COVID-19 had man-made origins or leaked from the lab in Wuhan – the Chinese city that was ground-zero for the virus — was effectively shut down by the letter,” the Daily Mail reported.The letter, however, was not the result of independent investigation but, rather, a heavily conflicted PR attempt.

Authors of Lancet Paper Had Ties to Chinese Lab

Twenty-seven scientists are listed as authors of The Lancet paper, “Statement in Support of the Scientists, Public Health Professionals, and Medical Professionals of China Combatting COVID-19.”

Twenty-six of them had ties to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which is at the heart of the controversy over its gain-of-function (GOF) research using bat coronaviruses.

The heavy conflicts were revealed by an investigation by The Daily Telegraph newspaper and confirm the questions many experts have raised over the paper’s credibility and motives.

If you look at The Lancet letter, Dr. Richard Muller, Professor Emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, stated during his testimony at the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis hearing, held June 29, 2021, they say you can dismiss a lab origin because China identified the host animal and even went so far as to praise China for its openness.

“This paper, The Lancet, does not read well when we look at it 16 months later,” Muller said, noting that a host animal hasn’t been found.

Investigation Details Lancet Paper’s  Conflicted Scientists

Ronald Corley, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology at Boston University, is the only scientist that was not found to have ties to WIV. A sampling of the more than two dozen other scientists that do have links — uncovered by The Telegraph investigation — are revealed below:

Peter Daszak –  EcoHealth Alliance president, is a name that comes up often, because Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance funded controversial GOF research at WIV. Further, NIAID, a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, gave funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, which then funneled it to WIV.6

Daszak was also made a commissioner of The Lancet Commission on COVID-19, but once his extreme conflict of interest was been made public, he was recused from the commission. The investigation revealed that five other signatories also worked for the Lancet Commission on COVID-19.

Daszak declared no competing interests in The Lancet paper, but in an update published June 21, 2021, The Lancet stated, “Some readers have questioned the validity of this disclosure, particularly as it relates to one of the authors, Peter Daszak.”

The journal invited the authors to “reevaluate their competing interests,” and Daszak suddenly had much more to say about his collaborations with China.

In an email revealed by a FOIA request, Daszak stated that he composed The Lancet paper after his “collaborators” in China asked for a “show of support.”

Daszak is also the treasurer of the Global Virome Project, which is partnered with EcoHealth Alliance. Its goal is to identify potential zoonotic viral threats, taking over from the former Predict project.

Daily Mail noted, “The Predict project was also found to have part-funded contentious work by Wuhan researchers on bat coronaviruses, which were altered to see if they could infect humans. The funds for the research were provided by the EcoHealth Alliance.”

Jeremy Farrar– director of the Wellcome Trust, has a position on the U.K.’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which advises the government on COVID-19, as well as a board seat with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which gave $1 billion to COVID-19 vaccine development.

Farrar has also published work with the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, George Gao, Ph.D., who he refers to as an “old friend.”

Gao helped launch the Global Virome Project and has been linked to Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., the director of WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, also known as “bat woman,” who has been studying bat-borne viruses since 2004, including SARS-like coronaviruses.

Daily Mail reported:

“Her team discovered a virus in 2013, which is the closest ever previously found to Sars-Cov-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19. Two other signatories — Dr Josie Golding and Professor Mike Turner — are known to have current or past connections with the Wellcome Trust. Dr Golding is the Trust’s Epidemics lead, while Prof. Turner is a Parasitology expert at the University of Glasgow, and formerly worked with the Trust.”

Linda Saif –  a microbiology expert at Ohio State University, was a speaker at a May 2017 workshop in Wuhan, that was organized in part by WIV. Other speakers at the workshop included Shi and Gao. Saif spoke on the topic of animal coronaviruses.

John Mackenzie – a tropical infectious disease expert at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, was a signatory on The Lancet paper, but he did not disclose that he was also a committee member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Kanta Subbarao – a virology expert from the University of Melbourne, Australia, former chief of NIAID’s Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section, spoke at a 2016 Wuhan conference about emerging diseases. The conference was organized, in part, by WIV.

Ralph Baric – Five of The Lancet paper’s signatories have published articles with Ralph Baric, whose name was omitted from the paper, but who has a significant tie to it nonetheless.

Baric, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed humanized mice used in GOF research by WIV.20

Baric worked closely with Zhengli and COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, and together with NIAID, sent mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates to Baric at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill December 12, 2019 – prior to the pandemic, raising significant red flags.

At the time The Lancet statement was released in February 2020, Daszak had advised Baric against adding his signature because he wanted to “put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”

Several Signatories Have Reversed Their Positions

After publicly suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 came from a natural origin – and any talk to the contrary a conspiracy theory – several of The Lancet paper’s original signatories have reversed their positions and are now calling for a full investigation into COVID-19’s origins.

This includes Peter Palese of the Icahn School of Medicine in New York, who told MailOnline in June 2021, “’I believe a thorough investigation about the origin of the Covid-19 virus is needed. A lot of disturbing information has surfaced since the Lancet letter I signed, so I want to see answers covering all questions.”

Signatory Stanley Perlman from the University of Iowa similarly said, ‘It is difficult to eliminate a possible lab leak as part of the process, so this still needs to be considered.’ Bernard Roizman, a microbiology expert at the University of Chicago, who also signed the paper has since stated he believes SARS-CoV-2 was “released by ‘sloppy’ scientists.”

Yet, the signatories have not come clean about their own conflicts of interest. When The Lancet published its June addendum disclosing Daszak’s conflicts, it invited the other signatories to also update their competing interests.

Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist with Rutgers University, told The Telegraph:

“Incredibly, only Daszak appears to have done so. Conflicts of interest were not reported for any of the other 26 signers of the letter – not even those with obviously material undisclosed conflicts such as EcoHealth employees and Predict contractors.”

An Orchestrated Campaign to Control the Narrative

The Lancet paper was just one piece of the campaign to control the narrative around COVID-19’s origins. Another one of the major pieces of propaganda is “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” a paper published in Nature Medicine in March 2020 that became the preeminent “proof” that SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin and couldn’t possibly have come from a lab.

It was later revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, Farrar and Dr. Francis Collins, NIH director, had a hand in the paper, as one of its authors wrote a March 6, 2020, email to the trio and colleagues, thanking them for their “advice and leadership.”

According to Charles Rixey, a COVID-19 analyst who combed through 100,000 pages of FOIA documents and reviewed more than 1,000 research articles, however, the five editors of the Nature Medicine paper, who he refers to as “the Proximals,” were aware of the existence of a furin cleavage site (FCS) on the virus as early as February 1, 2020, the day a conference call was organized by Farrar and Fauci “to address several aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 genome that pointed towards an artificial origin, by means of generating adaptive changes through passaging and/or direct manipulation of the genome.”

After the February 1, 2020, conference call, a February 3 meeting was held by Fauci, presidential science adviser Kelvin Droegemeier, Chris Hassell, senior science adviser for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and National Academies’ policy director Alexander Pope, during which the “group slapped the table on what the narrative was going to be — not what the science indicated.”

Rixey wrote:

“Therefore, the signal was sent to all scientists that pursuing the lab origins angle meant career death (no academy membership), no funding (via Fauci or Ross or Farrar), no publication in the big  journals during the historic pandemic (NEJM, Science, The Lancet & Nature [by virtue of their publishing of the tone-setting pieces]), no executive patronage for things like generic drugs, etc.”

Many have stated that we’ll never truly know the origin of SARS-CoV-2, short of China confessing or a whistleblower coming forward, but as Muller stated during his testimony,

“We have a whistleblower, the virus itself.”

Even as scientists who have worked closely on GOF research with WIV have tried to shut down investigations into the lab leak theory, the virus may ultimately reveal the truth.

SARS-CoV-2 has a unique trigger on the surface called a furin cleavage site and a unique code in the genes for that site called a CGG-CGG dimer; these markers do not exist in natural coronaviruses but are known to have been used in GOF research.

Dr. Steven Quay, who holds 87 patents across 22 different fields of medicine and invented seven FDA-approved medicines, believes that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory in China.

His Bayesian analysis of SARS-CoV-2 origins revealed that finding a CGG-CGG codon pair in the furin site of SARS-CoV-2 is “a highly improbable event,” and this can be used to adjust the likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 is of zoonotic origin to only 0.5%, while the likelihood of laboratory origin is 99.5%.

Source: MERCOLA