Below is my column in the Hill on recent disclosure that the Biden Administration may have withheld evidence contradicting the Chinese on the origins of COVID. Millions of Americans lost loved ones and would like to know who was responsible. It appears that our government and many experts were less motivated to find that answer.
Here is the column:
Imagine a world war that left more than seven million dead, hundreds of millions became ill, wrecked the global economy, and left a generation with lasting psychological and developmental injuries.
We have seen such wars in history. What is different in this circumstance, however, is that all of that happened, and yet, years later, we still have no agreement on the original cause or possible culprits behind a pandemic that ravaged the world.
Worse yet, many politicians, experts and journalists do not seem inclined to find the answers.
This is like fighting World War II and then shrugging off the question of what actually started it.
New questions are being raised over long-withheld evidence on the origins of COVID, information that contradicted the accounts of not just the Biden administration but also allies in academia and the media.
The Chinese first reported the outbreak in December 2019 and insisted that it came from a wet market in Wuhan — a natural or “zoonotic” transfer from bats sold at the market. Others were skeptical and pointed to the nearby Wuhan government virus lab, known to have conducted coronavirus studies with bats. This lab had a history of safety and contamination concerns.
The “lab-leak theory,” which was always the most obvious explanation, was further reinforced by scientists who saw evidence of possible manipulation of the virus’s genetic code, particularly the “spike protein” that enables the virus to enter the human body in a “gain of function” operation.
There was (and still is) a serious controversy over the origins of the virus, but any debate was quickly scuttled in favor of the natural theory.
The Chinese immediately moved to crush any speculation of a lab-leak. Wuhan scientists were gagged and the Chinese refused to allow international investigators access to them or the lab in question. The Chinese also used their considerable influence over the World Health Organization and other groups to dismiss or downplay the lab theory..
Now, a long-withheld military report has finally been released by the Trump administration. It appears to confirm what was once denied by the Biden administration: U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19-like symptoms after participating in the World Military Games in October 2019 in Wuhan.
That contradicts China’s timeline. It suggests a longer cover-up in that country, which allowed the virus to spread not only to the U.S. but to countries around the world. Other nations also reported that their military personnel had fallen ill after attending the same games, suggesting that the virus was not only spreading but already raging in the area at that time.
The most disturbing aspect of this report is not the alleged conduct of the Chinese government, but that of our own.
Rumors of U.S. military personnel coming down with the virus had long been out there. Republicans in Congress repeatedly asked the Biden administration about any report on the outbreak.
Then-Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told The Washington Post in June 2021 that the military had “no knowledge” of COVID-19 infections among the troops participating in those games.
Even as the illness associated with the games became known, the Biden administration repeatedly refused to confirm the U.S. cases, and a 2022 report was withheld from both Congress and the public.
If true, the level of duplicity and dishonesty is shocking. In the U.S. alone, more than 1.2 million died and more than 111 million were made sick by this virus. Yet the Biden administration is accused of withholding this information from the world. Why?
This disclosure follows an equally troubling disclosure that scientists in the Biden administration actually found support for the lab theory but were silenced by their superiors.
Last December, the Wall Street Journal released an alarming report on how these scientists supported the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
As scientists were being attacked publicly and blacklisted for supporting the lab theory, experts at both the FBI and the Energy Department found the lab theory credible. Although no theory could be proven conclusively, it was deemed a more likely scenario than the natural-origin theory. The CIA also found the lab theory credible.
What the public was hearing was entirely different. They were hearing the same narrative laid out by the Chinese government in December 2019.
The Chinese relied upon western scientists to form a mob against anyone raising the lab-leak theory as a possible explanation. Many were enlisted to sign letters or publish statements denouncing the idea. It became an article of faith — a required virtue signal among university scientists.
The western media were equally primed to quash the theory.
After President Trump embraced the lab theory, the Chinese had the perfect setup. The media was on a hair-trigger in opposition and denounced his comments as not only unfounded but also racist. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified.”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum.” Over at CNN, reporter Drew Griffin criticized the “widely debunked” theory and host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.
The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. After Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) raised the lab-leak theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
The Post’s “fact checker” Glenn Kessler mocked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for entertaining the theory. “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab,” he posted. “Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
Even in 2021 when countervailing evidence was surfacing, the unrelenting attacks continued. New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli urged journalists not to mention the “racist” lab theory.
Social media companies also enforced the narrative and, with the coordination of the Biden Administration, experts raising the lab theory were targeted, censored, and blacklisted.
It now appears that the COVID outbreak may have occurred months before the alleged wet market release — months that could have been used to contain the virus. Instead, China is accused of suppressing the news and allowing the virus to spread worldwide. Our military personnel alone went home from the Wuhan games to 25 states, potentially carrying it with them.
When information on these infections connected to the games was reported around the world, China even suggested that the U.S. used the games to release the weaponized virus.
In 2020, I wrote a column on why China seemed poised to avoid any liability for what might be the greatest act of negligence in history. The sheer size of the disaster somehow seemed to insulate China. As Joseph Stalin had once said, “a single death is a tragedy” and “a million deaths is a statistic.”
Try more than seven million, and you have a statistic that was not worth confronting the Chinese over. What was done was done.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Jonathan: A week ago Saturday millions of Republicans and Democrats rallied across the country in defiance of DJT’s anti-democratic policies. This past weekend 150,000 showed up for the Bernie Sanders/AOC rally in Coachella and 36,000 came to the rally in downtown LA. Even in conservative Utah 20,000 showed up for the “Fight Oligarchy” rally. And the rallies are growing in size. And where were the MAGA rallies in support of DJT? Only crickets!
Everyone has a different story about the effects of DJT’s insane tariffs. I have a friend who owns an upscale men’s clothing store in my home town. He gets ALL his suits, shirts, ties and other accessories from China. It wasn’t always that way. His father and grandfather made their own suits. My friend says that has all changed. No one makes suits in the US any more. That’s why my friend was forced to turn to China. He confided to me that when he learned about DJT’s tariffs on China, he and some other friends chartered a plane to fly in a load of men’s clothing and other accessories from China. He says that if DJT continues with his Chinese tariffs he will continue that practice. He told me “I know I may be violating the law but I have no other choice if I want to stay in business”.
No one alive today knows anything about Prohibition, the nationwide ban on alcohol production, sale and transport in the US from 1920-1933. But it did create a thriving business for alcohol anyway. And it produced people like Al Capone who created a booming market for illegal alcohol, allowing Capone to amass immense wealth and power through bootlegging. It also resulted in vast crime and corruption.
Under DJT’s tariff regime we will see Prohibition replicated in spades. Businesses, small and large, will find a way to avoid the tariffs–like my friend. And our elected “convicted felon” will find a way to profit off that illicit trade. But, hey, for those on this blog who voted for the modern day equivalent of “Al Capone” do you need any further evidence you voted for the wrong guy?
P.S.: DJT’s tariffs are having a ripple effect. Delta Airlines is taking a firm stance against the tariffs. Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian says his company will not pay tariffs on new plane deliveries and may defer those deliveries. That’s bad news for Boeing! Part of the problem is that Delta bookings are way down. People aren’t booking vacations this summer because they are worried they won’t have a job or won’t get their SS check on time. Add to that Canadians en masse are boycotting the DJT regime. It looks like the effects of DJT’s tariffs are already taking effect. It’s going to get ugly very fast!
#. You’ll find the oligarchs at Davos and in every 3rd world in on earth, Dennis. Their idea is “emerging markets”. Development of 3rd world nations to lift them out of poverty. China has its own slave labor at 1.5 billion people and is quite wealthy with major oligarchs. DJT is attempting to facilitate growth in other 3rd worlds like Vietnam and southeast Asia which has sent Xi on a beeline into those nations.
Do you wear Nike products? Jordan the famous spokesperson gets shoes for a dollar fifty and you buy them for 150 dollars? Get off the virtue cloud. No one in those nations could buy made in America, not even Americans.
Trump is developing 3rd worlds but not China. Obama used China to get cheap goods into here all knock offs once bought on the sidewalks in NYC now mainstream.
It’s quite a mess.
110 nations took part in the 2019 military games in Wuhan. 9,308 athletes total, roughly 9,130 not from the US. I have read about some US participants experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms, but have read nothing about athletes from any other nation having similar health experiences. Does any reader here have links to health concerns experienced by the non-US athletes?
Considering John Kerry’s kid had massive business interests in China, along with Hunter Biden, why is anyone surprised?
This morning I was thinking about the entire nay saying administrators during the Covid pandemic and thought “were they Men/Women, or Mouse or Rat”? Taking just one example, General Milne and the resent disclosure(s) he could be defined as a Mouse with Rat tendencies but assuredly not a Man of principles. I didn’t waste time thinking of the press they already are rats who scurry about looking for tidbits of truth to lie about.
William James: “There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.”
Dennis said: “a lot of Americans died unnecessarily because they refused to get vaccinated.”
Many Americans–maybe most–now know of someone who has been vaccine injured. I know of two who died shortly after getting the vaccine. The Swine Flu vaccine was pulled after relatively few injury reports yet the Covid vax ploughs on, or ploughs under as the case may be. Could billions of dollars have anything to do with it? Could royalties paid to Fauci and Collins have anything to do with it?
The only person I know, a friend, who died of Covid refused HCQ because Trump recommended it. Instead he accepted the top-down protocol engineered by the feds, wait until you are short of breath then report to the hospital to be given Remdesivir, and then sedated and intubated and isolated from family and friends. Then die.
We got reports of his ongoing struggle and were surprised to hear of organ failure. Later we learned that is a possible side effect of Remdesivir. Some hospitals are now being sued for using it and causing deaths.
The government protocol seems almost an assisted suicide procedure.
Since that time we have known many, many cases [including our own] where recovery from Covid was fairly swift and at home using medications and procedures developed by physicians treating thousands of patients and building knowledge from hands-on experience. That technique has a name: science.
Of course the government and media and professional organizations demonized the medications and procedures and the doctors who were saving lives. A lot of money was at stake.
With all that we have learned since then we are convinced that our friend would not have died if he commenced HCQ or Ivermectin immediately rather than following the ‘approved’ procedure. We have seen too many who were initially sicker than he was who turned around almost immediately with the forbidden treatments.
People died because of the lies, not for refusing the death vax.
Ask yourself, why did Fauci get a pardon?
Why do you write crap like this that promotes distrust of science and quack cures? It is MAGA propaganda to claim that the COVID vaccine is not safe and that there are home or “off label” cures that are being hidden and lied about because pharmaceutical companies would rather see people die than lose money. What did your friend’s death certificate list as the cause of death? Are you a physician? What qualifies you to opine about your friend’s cause of death? Ivermectin has been proven to be ineffective against COVID. But since Trump pushed it and can never be wrong, the lie about Ivermectin just won’t stop.
This reminds me of stories that used to go around even when I was a child that drug companies had cancer cures that are being suppressed so that doctors and hospitals can make more money. Remember Laetrile? Steve McQueen went to Mexico to get this treatment for mesothelioma and he died.
Fauci received a pardon because he wouldn’t knuckle under to Trump and his COVID lies and because Trump promised to go after him if he got back into office—-just like he has done for Krebs and Taylor from his first term for daring to tell the truth.
Gigi “It is MAGA propaganda to claim that the COVID vaccine is not safe”
Not quite. When Trump urged people, MAGA folks, to get vaccinated there were boos. He was startled. His own people booing him? But that is what happens when people actually weigh the evidence and figure things out for themselves.
As for the Covid vax being dangerous you need go no further than the Pfizer Fact Sheet publicly available. Pfizer says their Covid vaccine can cause cardiac problems. It also says that they have no idea what long term adverse effects their vaccine may have.
So, Gigi, perhaps you can figure it out with a little help.
1. The Covid vaccine is experimental and has not been rigorously tested the way approved drugs.
2. The Covid vaccine manufacturer warns it may damage your heart.
3. The manufacturer warns that they have no idea what long term harm may result.
4. The manufacturer demands immunity from suits for damages.
5. The vaccine is new and strange technology, not a true vaccine at all.
6. When sued for their records the manufacturer demanded 75 years pass before release
Does it sound safe when even the manufacturer warns it can damage your heart?
Does it seem like anyone in his right mind would be willing to have something this bizarre injected into his body?
Again–DO YOU HAVE ANY CITATION TO RELIABLE AUTHORITY FOR WHAT YOU ARE CLAIMING ARE “FACTS”? You clearly do not. What actual “facts” were you MAGAts “weighing” in deciding not to get vaccinated? The kind of crap RFK, Jr. spouts, based on nothing? There are risks to literally everything–from drinking water, to aspirin, every food, every drug. The COVID vaccine is NOT “experimental”. From the website “Skeptical Science”:
“When you hear somebody label the COVID vaccine as “experimental”, then that is an immediate red flag that announces “Here is a potential anti-vaccine crank”. It is not always the case, but it usually is.
What exactly is “experimental” about a vaccine that has not only been through very robust phase III clinical trials, but has also had literally billions of doses deployed?
For every whacky claim there is of course a Facebook posting that will supposedly validate it. Sanity tip: If anybody is citing either “Facebook” or “YouTube” then you can more or less guarantee that it is wrong.
Key Statement of Fact: COVID-19 vaccines authorised for use are not experimental and have all completed animal and clinical trials.
What is this really about?
It’s a tactic. The term “experimental” perhaps stems from the observation that the COVID vaccines are available under The Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
Rather obviously it is not released as a scientific “experiment”, the vaccines are way beyond that. There is a lot of data available that grants insights into both the safety and effectiveness of the various vaccines . That was true when they got the EUA. After literally billions of doses being deployed, it is even more so now.
Deploying this term is a way to invoke fear within the minds of the unwary.
Another term that is often deployed to scare people is “gene therapy”. Such language is not designed to inform, bur rather to manipulate and scare people.”
And, immunity from damages over vaccines was passed into law, pushed by Republicans” long before COVID. You claim the COVID vaccine “is not a vaccine at all”–based on what? Are you a scientist? If you are, explain it to me. You are merely regurgitating MAGA media propaganda.
Gigi, isn’t the Pfizer Fact Sheet included with the Covid vax a reliable source?
CITE IT. Does it say any of the things you claim–like it’s NOT a vaccine, that it is “experimental”, that it hasn’t been tested (even though, worldwide, billions of doses have been safely administered), that it is a “new and strange technology”? The COVID virus itself can permanently damage the heart. An abstract from a study published in the 11/12/2024 “European Heart Journal Supplement”, available from the National Institutes of Health (until Trump shuts it down):
“The proliferation of good quality observational studies on the potential adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccination has greatly increased our knowledge on myocarditis and pericarditis, and also, more recently, on arterial hypertension. According to some recent studies, the incidence of a significant increase in blood pressure after COVID-19 vaccination is about 3.2% (95% CI: 1.62–6.21). The incidence of serious hypertensive emergencies or stage III hypertension has been reported as 0.6%. It is well known that the ‘spike protein’ of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the synthesis of which is induced by vaccines, binds to ACE2 receptors, inducing their migration towards the inside of the cell. This would result in a lack of ACE2 activity on cell surfaces and therefore a relative deficiency of angiotensin1-7 with a relative excess of angiotensin II, which could explain, at least in part, the blood pressure increases. Regarding myo-pericarditis, there is evidence that the advantages of COVID-19 vaccination over non-vaccination remain preponderant in terms of prevented hospitalizations and serious complications of COVID-19, compared with the risk of developing myocarditis. In the age group most at risk of COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis (12–29 years), for every 100 000 vaccinated, compared to about four more cases of myocarditis we have 56 fewer hospitalizations, 13.8 admissions to intensive care and 0.6 fewer deaths. Several studies have shown that post vaccine myocarditis/pericarditis are generally short-lasting phenomena with favourable clinically course.”
Gigi, I told you of the Pfizer Fact Sheet. Surely you aren’t an infant who must be led to his porridge and given a spoon…or are you? Find it yourself…it really isn’t berry hard.
The quality of trolls on this site has really fallen off of late..ATS and committohonest discussion were much better and sometimes interesting.
You should always distrust science. it is never settled.
# . When they KNEW the treatment was dexamethesone and antibiotic for secondary. What an atrocity.
RIP for those deaths…
Cite some reliable authority. COVID is a virus–antibiotics are ineffective against viruses. Dexamethasone is a steroid–that is also contraindicated for COVID unless there is severe inflammation of the lungs that is life-threatening. Stop repeating MAGA media slop.
Gigi you confuse the facts somewhat there. Covid is a galactic size crime scene. Motive? Ideology, power, money by the truckloads.
Viral infection is gradually overcome by the immunity system, needing time, anti-virals if available, rest and nutrition. A pneumonia infection is where antibiotics are needed but the BARDA director Dr Rick Bright designed the Covid Hospital protocols and excluded use of antibiotics. Why did the bulk of medicos shrug off the blocking of antibiotics? Hmmm.
Bright also deployed bureaucratic catch-22 rules thou shall not cross lest your med credential be yanked… and ruled that the HCQ stockpile (Pres. Trump requested be deployed) could only be used in hospitals and even then if you had ignored the establishment hint, you indirectly threaten their fed fundings. He undermined Trump’s determination to provide early treatment and reinforced Birx and Fauci’s insistence you need to flatten the curve for icu beds in hospital for late stage symptoms and rundeathisnear (nursing slang) expensive flattening protocol. Expensive in precious lives wasted by Rockefeller medicines’ bureaucrats.
Bright transfered from fed to Rockefeller payroll incidentally. After Trump fired him.
Gigi, with all your knowledge, why don’t you lecture the group on the use of antibiotics where the primary infection was viral.
Include secondary bacterial infections
Immunocompromised individuals
COPD
Potential misdiagnosis
At one time you called yourself a nurse. Were you a stupid one?
Simple.
The Biden administration took a page out of “Chinese Political Management 101” and did what the Chinese do. Their media combines with the government to stifle curious questions, and the punish those who don’t get the hint and ask again.
While this is important with respect to Covid, and our ability to trust our government, it is much more important with respect to our ability to trust “experts”, “science”.
There is not a single Malthusian prognostication EVER that has proven true.
We are constantly told by “science” by “experts” that but for radical changes to our lives everything will go to h311.
Polar bears will die, oil will run out, Raptors will become extinct, Bees will be gone, we will all die of skin cancer.
Billions will starve from over population.
Not one of these and many many many others has proven true.
Science – like our courts and media have become heavily politicized and as a result we can no longer trust those who speak for science.
Jonathan: Why do you keep chasing the debunked “lab leak” conspiracy theory about the origins of Covid-19? Your two back-to-back columns reek of “may haves” but no where is there any scientific evidence to back up your claims. If you were seriously concerned about the deaths of 1.2 million Americans from Covid-19 why did you join DJT and the MAGA anti-vax crowd–even promoting the “Great Barrington Declaration” that pushed the anti-science view that, except for the elderly, no one need get vaccinated because Americans would somehow be protected by “herd immunity”? Those false theories were not only unscientific but dangerous because a lot of Americans died unnecessarily because they refused to get vaccinated.
Now if you are really concerned about saving lives why don’t you discuss how DJT and Elon Musk have gutted USAID–that provided life saving HIV/AIDS programs in many African countries. The cut off of that crucial aid will lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths across the African continent. You don’t seem concerned about that because you only “loved them”, i.e., American lives. And you don’t seem concerned by Musk’s use of a chainsaw to attack and cut SS, Medicare, Medicaid or child nutrition and health care programs upon which millions of American families depend upon.
So it appears you are really not interested in protecting lives. You want us to be distracted by claims of alleged “duplicity and dishonesty” by the Biden administration. That dog won’t hunt anymore. Biden left office on January 20th. When the country’s economy is tanking and we are about to enter a deep recession because of DJT’s disastrous tariffs do you really want the Congress to spend time looking into the past actions of the Biden administration? Really?
Frankly, I think Congress should better spend it’s time taking back it’s right under the Constitution to set tariffs that was stolen from it by DJT’s unlawful “emergency” declaration. Now that would be worthy of a column. But I don’t suppose you will be addressing that any time soon!
Dennis,
Are you a reincarnation of the People’s Temple Kool-Aide drinkers from French Guyana? Of course this matters no, this has not been debunked.
There is a “there there.” Even more was the dismissal and sometimes criminal actions in the mismanagement and censorship gaslighting campaign against citizens and small businesses.
Furthermore. USAID stand for “U.S. Agency for International Development.” Not AID. It turns out that a good deal of the funding was the slush fund for meddling in international politics, foreign cultures and leftists causes.
When the audit shined light on their books, a giant boom and a mushroom cloud was seen overhead. Bullseye!
“Dennis,
Are you a reincarnation of the People’s Temple Kool-Aide drinkers from French Guyana”
He is more the reincarnation of Jim Jones…
“Why do you keep chasing the debunked “lab leak” conspiracy theory about the origins of Covid-19? ”
Turley is not chasing a debunked claim – it was a prebunked claim – a claim that is likely true that the left prebunked because the world seeing that China and the US and sicientists F$%Ked up and killed millions of people had to stopped.
Regardless at this time the odds of the wet market these being true is near zero.
The odds that covid did NOT come from WIV are near zero.
If you still beleive that the WIV lab leak is false, if you do not accept that it is extremely likely.
You are an ill informed moron.
But what is new ?
It’s all an attempt to mollify the MAGA. trump disobeys the SC so JT brings up an old Biden item. Distraction much? JT is weak just like his orange god that bowed down to the President of El Salvador.
It matters. The world needs to know the truth. It was constructed in a lab and it just so happened to start where COVID viruses were being manipulated. Anyone with any sense can figure that out.
What irritated me is all the “scientists” with word salad after their name were making stuff up as they went and in their arrogance got a taste of raw power. “Thou shalt….” “Thou shalt not!”
I had some time at the beginning and contacted the informatics team at the National Laboratories and asked a question about the statistical probabilities of how the deaths were being reported. These are post doctoral statisticians. The person I contacted agreed that it was disingenuous to report “Died with COVID” instead of died with COVID.
This is because there was a drop in cardiovascular deaths, diabetic complications and even car accidents. If COVID could be found they were going to hang it on anyone, even 99 year olds.
Then was the bizarre black masks, the virtue signaling masks. What was that all about. Our blue state governor was acting like a tyrant and seemed angry all the time at us mere mortals.
There list goes on and on. The hypocrisy was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Some of these tyrants need to be held accountable for their despicable and in some cases criminal actions.
Died of vs. died with
Treating physicians knew this was true. Bonus’ and fear moved the needle.
As more and more is revealed about the Biden administration, I keep asking myself whether they could possibly have done anything more reprehensible. And I keep getting the same answer, as shown in this column. I think maybe I ought to quit asking the question. Thank God Trump won, if for no other reason than we are finding out how badly and consistently we’ve been lied to by our government and those supposedly covering it and ferreting out wrongdoing.
Satan found the Biden administration too wicked for his tastes. He realized even he is not that evil.
True
Turley should be focusing on the Ozturk case instead. I presents a quandary for Turley because it’s been reported that the government has no evidence of their claims at all. Clearly this was about free speech. Turley should be all over this story like white on rice, but apparently he can’t be bothered because it’s not about a democrat doing the violating. It’s Trump. Can’t be criticizing Trump or he will deport you no matter what.
As is typical you are way ahead of the facts.
Ozturk will get to make her case, as will the government. Afterwards we can assess the actual facts.
You have jumped to conclusions in every other case – which should anyone beleive you now ?
In fact you have jumped to conclusions that later proved false so many times.
Turley is writing about covid – and you are one of the phalanx on the left shouting down those who were telling the truth.
You were ranting about pee tapes, about russian disinformation, and a long long list of other nonsense.
When have you been right about anything ?
Why should anyone beleive you about anything ?
China is exclusively and solely responsible for the witting and deliberate or casual and inadvertent origination, transmission, and spread of “China Flu, 2019.”
China, as a lone and solitary party, is liable to 195 countries for $200 trillion in damages—this amount may be increased.
The International Court of Justice must adjudicate this heinous Crime Against Humanity.
The US government with near certainty funded the development of Covid in China – the culpability lies with more than the Chinese.
It definitely lies with Fauxi and his crowd.
There is actually two questions that need to be answered before proceeding forward.
1) Does it matter when and where CVID-19 started?
2) Does the truth actually matter?
If the first answer is no, then fold up the tents and let us move onto other issues.
If the first question is is yes, then move to the second question.
Once again if the answer to second question is no, then let us move forward because if the truth does not matter, no answer matters.
Again, if the answer is yes, then the search for the truth must be paramount even if that search is painful. I cannot see how much more misery can be put upon the families of the dead. For no other reason, to provide them answers to help find peace.
So if I understand my history, there are two prevailing hypothesis. One is the wet market in Wuhan and the other is the Wuhan lab leak.
Is it possible that COVID-19 started in a wet market? Yes, that is the history lesson from the Spanish Flu. It has happened before.
Is it possible that the Wuhan lab leak theory is true? Yes. That lab just happen to be studying corona virus and gain of function studies (how to make them more transmissible) when the virus presented. There are also concerns of safety violations at the lab.
So both hypothesis’ are plausible, yet anyone mentioning the lab leak was ridiculed. Why? Why such vehemence when so many died?
The answer lays in China which has no appetite to find the truth, especially if that truth points to a lab leak and safety violations and have had lab personnel die from the virus. Yet, not controlling a wet market that allowed a deadly virus to form is not going to shine a great light on China either. So they obfuscate and put up blocks. The full truth may never be known..
At the same time, regardless of why or how, did the American Government suppress and why. This only matters if the truth matters.
I think it does and let the chips fall where they may.
You dimwit MAGA morons really are something else.
Completely disconnected from reality.
Seeing conspiracies everywhere.
There are boogeymen under the bed.
There are monsters in the closet.
It never ends.
You have noticed format changes to the website, with columns disappearing and reappearing. You immediately jump to the conclusion that the site has been hacked, or there is a DDoS attack.
Whimsicalmama, James, Diogenes and others all commenting that the site is being hacked.
Maybe you should just look at this:
https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-8/
There is a major release of WordPress 6.8. scheduled for tomorrow. For the past few days there have been Releases that gradually update changes to the format of the site.
The final version goes live tomorrow.
This is nothing more than a scheduled update to the software.
What a bunch of complete morons.
You are so gullible, ready to see conspiracies everywhere.
This is why you are members of a cult.
You are completely incapable of rational, independent thought.
^^ The first three words are enough to reveal that this is a paid Chinese troll ^^
Exactly proving my point !!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
^^ Exactly proving MY point ^^
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Question, then. Why have articles been disappearing and reappearing today? I looked this morning, and it was this article, Weak Essay, and “Falicitation” on top. Check back around lunch, two more weekend articles show up, and this one has been taken down, likely reworded for some bits, then put back up with no comments. Seems a little more than a format change, given no other articles before this last weekend had their comment sections scrubbed.
This is absolutely unbelievable !!!
You are simply proving my point.
When confronted with an obvious explanation for how the website is changing, you fly off on absurd conspiracy theories, based purely on ridiculous suppositions about things of which you have no knowledge. You wonder if the articles and comments have been reworded by some nefarious hacker with malign intent, with absolutely no evidence.
Classic cult behavior !!!!
A major software update is underway.
This is is not a trivial update.
Darren is obviously trying to do the update live, on the fly, without completely taking down the site.
When you try to do a major update without taking down the site, glitches and temporary anomalies are inevitable.
You need to get a life.
Stop looking under the bed and in the closet.
You are in a cult.
ATS – it is left wing nuts that have been wrong about most everything – including DOZENs of things regarding covid,
most every word out of your mouth regarding Trump or MAGA or republicans is a lie or worthless garbage.
And here you are in a article noting that we were all lied to and only Trump and Republicans were right,
ranting that the only people with a consistent track record for accuracy, and truth are all some cult conspiracy theorists.
If you wish to see a cult member – look in the mirror.
Idiot. One of my previous responsibilities was designing and managing Disaster Recovery programs and capabilities for a large, international mining corporation. One of the essential requirements of DR is ensuring that all important data are copied to a safe location in such a way that they may be restored in the event of serious malfunction. So, 1 or 2 of 3 things is/are true: the staff responsible for this blog site did not bother to do proper backup; Turley & co do not regard comments that are posted here (some of which reflect a good bit of thought and effort) as of any real importance or value; there was something more to the cause of the issues identified than a version upgrade. Items 1 & 2 are in no way mutually exclusive: anyone putting real effort into comments here might want to think about that.
-Number 6
This has to be one of the stupidest, most incoherent comments of all time !!!!
Why are you babbling incoherently about international mining corporations and disaster recovery programs.
This is just an insignificant, low rent WordPress blog, managed by one person.
It will not be a “disaster” if it is lost during the upgrade.
There is no disaster. Nothing needs to be recovered.
Darren is just preparing to install an upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.
He is obviously doing it on the fly without taking down the site.
He has probably backed it up, but who knows??
It is perfectly clear that he is doing the upgrade without taking down the site.
What a moron!!!!
What your comment is called is: accusation in a mirror, more commonly known as projection. China is very corrupt and will go to any length to protect the CCP.
Your hatred of a political group clouds your judgment and because of that you look stupid. Just saying.
“China is very corrupt and will go to any length to protect the CCP”
China’s public face IS the CCP – it is an identity. The ordinary people have no voice at all.
Turnout in 1789 was 11.6%. Vote qualifications were male, European, 21, and 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres. The republic that was established in 1789 was never designed to be a one-man, one-vote “democracy.” States were to severely limit and restrict voters, while the Constitution severely limits and restricts government.
Turley– “the level of duplicity and dishonesty is shocking”
Not to me.
Not to many others like me who didn’t ‘follow the science’ or believe that ‘scientific consensus’ was the equivalent of unquestionable Truth. It never has been. That’s religion, not science. In science everything is open to question.
Almost instantly it was highly likely that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. Given the dishonesty of the Chinese government and–as it turned out–the dishonesty of our own government and media–it was even more likely that they knew it came from the lab and were desperate to hide their complicity.
Now we are finding out.
To take an example, nobody who refused the Covid jab regrets that decision. Many who have gotten it do regret getting it. And we are still being given less than the truth about it.
I am glad Trump and his brilliant cabinet are taking a wrecking ball to the entire rotten structure. With DOGE it is revealed to be even worse than I imagined and that did surprise me.
A number of analysts have argued for years that the lab leak likely occurred around September 2019 or perhaps even earlier. By the time of the military games it had spread in Wuhan, and then internationally.
So the real question is why cover it all up? For the CCP, there is not too much mystery, but why the US? Here, individual motivations may matter.
Fauci and Collins had been promoting gain of function research for a decade at least. They had huge career and reputational stakes in its not being blamed for the pandemic. They also no doubt believed this was important research and did not want to see it derailed, including in collaboration with China
The virology community, had a similar stake and belief, and vast funding as well.
But why the national security apparatus? They might have welcomed a chance to bash China, with good reason. So why protect China instead? Perhaps there were joint development projects, or to the contrary, espionage operations that needed to be protected. I find this a mystery.
The media is not hard to understand, since the lab leak theory was supported early on by Republicans, including Trump. This became another symptom of Trump derangement syndrome.
Once the narrative was in place, protecting it, and perpetuating the cover up, became the natural response.
Daniel: try naming just ONE of the “analysts” you claim “argued” the lab leak theory. You don’t–and, that’s a MAGA tactic–throw out what you claim to be a fact, which isn’t, and then move on to either defend Trump or attack Democrats. Just HOW did the “lab leak”occur? Is there any proof? If you don’t have any, then stop attacking Dr. Fauci or the CDC. Trump has NO proof, either, and it is irresponsible to make false claims about the origins of a deadly disease. And, and “argument” for something, not based on fact, is not science.
GiGi – your ranting because Daniel did not “name” an analyst.
You miss the point that those claiming that Covid was the result of a lab leak – land likely in september of 2019, were – as they so often are, the only people who are likely RIGHT.
I do not care if Daniels analysts are trolls living in caves – they are more accurate than Fauxi or the WHO or the Biden administration – Which Turley has caught in ANOTHER lie – and likely under oath.
How did the lab leak occur – a researcher in the lab was careless and had direct contact with a covid infected mouse.
She failed to report this, failed to uarntine, and eventually infected coworkers and family who then infected others.
There is actually a great deal of evidence for this – there are a cluster of highly suspicious likely early victims and infections from WVL.
The early spread of the virus seems to match the subways and bus lines from WVL.
Turley notes that soldiers participating in military games in China in Oct 2019 appear to have returned to the US and other countries with a covid like disease months before covid.
Can we prove beyond a reasonable doubt this is wht happened ? No.
But there is 10,000 times more proof that of the zoonotic origen the wet markets.
No one has ever found an intermediate animal source. Not only must there be such a source – but there must be multiple evolutionary steps that can be found on the route from the Bat corona virus to Covid 19. but no such evolutionary steps have ever been found.
Fauci and Collins had been promoting gain of function research for a decade at least. They had huge career and reputational stakes in its not being blamed for the pandemic. They also no doubt believed this was important research and did not want to see it derailed, including in collaboration with China
They did what they did because of arrogance and be seen as “saviours”, e.g. Louis Pasteur, James Watson, Francis Crick, et al. Plus Fauci remembered all too well how he fumbled the HIV / AIDS affair, and COVID was his chance to rebuild his legacy. Otherwise GOF research has been around for decades, and hit its traction in Drosophila, fruit fies, not virology, in the 1980s so as to understand how genetics worked. Back then when we knew next to nothing about DNA.
Anderson, K.V., Jürgens, G. and Nüsslein-Volhard, C., 1985. Establishment of dorsal-ventral polarity in the Drosophila embryo: genetic studies on the role of the Toll gene product. Cell, 42(3), pp.779-789.
The Human Genome Project began in 1990 and ended in 2003. The HGP was a tremendous breakthrough and GOF took off around this period because scientists began to understand how to manipulate genes so as to disable proteins that led to pathology. Cancer featured prominently in GOF research particularly the p53 gene (responsible for 50% of cancers).
Dittmer, D., Pati, S., Zambetti, G., Chu, S., Teresky, A.K., Moore, M., Finlay, C. and Levine, A.J., 1993. Gain of function mutations in p53. Nature genetics, 4(1), pp.42-46.
It was only later with influenza that GOF research pushed into virology, and given the human condition, nefarious players entered. China did what they did with COVID GOF research for weaponanization reasons because they embody nefarious players. That Democrats defend China is no accident. Democrats have never met a Communist dictator they did not like.
The virology community, had a similar stake and belief, and vast funding as well.
Not quite. I’m part of the virology community as well as cardiology. No one in my academic circles (from John Hopkins to Duke) gained anything from the Feds lies. In fact, virology suffered because all research (including HIV and non-virology areas like cancer) was halted and researchers were bribed by NIH to pursue COVID research. Those of us in HIV research circles complained bitterly but our research funds dried up. I know academic researchers who knew/know nothing about virology, but published articles in COVID because that’s where the money was, and they were defunded in their respective areas of medicine.
NB: there is no “virology community” just like there is no “white community, Latino community, black community”, etc. Don’t fall into their trap of identity politics. Academic medicine is ruthelss to their own members – we are not one big happy famiy.
Biden was never president. He was a place holder, a broken one at that, used as a puppet by Obama and his apparatchiks like Susan Rice, Ron Klain, et al.
The COVID fiasco was always about power just like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Obama-era officials return to White House worth millions
https://abcnews.go.com/US/obama-era-officials-return-white-house-worth-millions/story?id=76582015
Fair points about the “virology community”.
“In science everything is open to question”
Exactly. “Science” is shorthand for “research that follows the scientific method”. The scientific method is designed to poke holes in theories advanced (not to put too fine a point on it). Not only is “everything open to question”, even theories that are regarded as well established for a long period of time may yet be disproven. Any “method” that does not follow that logic cannot be “scientific”, and no one who asserts a hypothesis as fact (“operable” might be a better term) without it being extensively subjected to that method can rightly call themselves a “scientist”. It isn’t the diploma document on the wall, it is the rigorous exercise of the questioning mind that makes it “science”.
Mr. Turley as one of Trump’s cutting edge sycophants wondering if you NOW ‘seriously believe” the situation with Kilmar Garcia is “intractable or unresolvable”?
Don’t expect an answer. As usual you’ll neglect the truly heinous things going on for your diversionary pieces purportedly supporting the indispensable RIGHT.
^ Another paid Chinese troll, trying to change the subject and deflect from his master’s crimes ^
Most of the subjects Turley covers are not relevant to much of anything except the MAGA mASSES on this pitiful site. Just trying to help getting things on to more current events.
BTW anonymous comrade Turley ecourages (at least in theory) people to civilly express their opinions. Maybe you should go re-read the site guidelines if you ever read them at all.
Turley covers a devastating virus that killed 6,000,000 people and made tens of millions ill, as well as the coverup of how that virus was unleashed on the world. The coverup involved the highest levels of the American and Chinese governments, as well as a lapdog media making excuses for them. And . . . . your take is, all of that is “not relevant to much of anything” except “MAGA” interests.
The conclusion is inescapable: you are a Chinese paid troll.
Do you like Chinese cooking?
Uncle Roger gets a lesson from Chef Martin Yan. No 145 % tariffs yet.
Turley: you wrote this trash piece full of qualifying statements that establish you KNOW you can’t prove the truth of the message you are trying to send out–that Biden is, somehow, responsible for the spread of COVID and the resulting deaths. You wrote this because: 1. you are paid to deflect attention away from all of the damage Trump has inflicted on America in less than 3 months. You are attempting to create the false impression that Joe Biden is, somehow, responsible for the spread of COVID based on nothing but innuendo and allegations. You also know MAGATs are not educated, do not think critically, and believe whatever lies are put out to defend Trump, who IS responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans because of lying about COVID, its seriousness and pushing for quack cures. Trump admitted he lied in an interview with Bob Woodward, and there IS scientific consensus that Trump’s lies and fake cures resulted in American deaths and disabilities.
You begin by saying people want to know “who is responsible”—where is there solid, scientific, proof that ANY PERSON is responsible and that COVID did not naturally evolve as viruses are known to do, and/or that it did NOT come from the Wuhan market? You claim that the “lab leak theory” is the most-obvious. Obvious to whom, and based on WHAT proof? There isn’t any such proof, which is why there is no scientific consensus. That you would even try to mislead people into believing that some PERSON is responsible for this is not just wrong–it is immoral. Tell us, Turley, in your vast and superior scientific knowledge, who was responsible for the Spanish flu in 1918 that killed 50 million people, which was 1/3 of the world’s population? How about the 1968 swine flu that killed between 1 and 4 milion people? There have been warnings about another worldwide pandemic for decades. COVID may have been it.
You claim that there was POSSIBLE manipulation of the spike protein–if this were provable scientifically, there would be scientific consensus–BUT THERE ISN’T–and you know it. Yet you put that out there, knowing of the gullibility of the MAGAts and because the damage Trump keeps doing literally daily is staggering–MAGA media has to have something with which to deflect, and you can only get so much mileage out of the “Hunter Biden Scandal”. You also claim that the Biden administration covered up that members of our military who participated in military games in October, 2019 had some illness that you want MAGATs to assume was COVID AND that the Biden administration KNEW it and covered it up. Uh, Turley, what tests did we have in October, 2019 for COVID? ZIP. According to the History Channel, COVID 19 was first identified in the US in January, 2020. Testing was not widely available until March, 2020, some 5 months after the military members came down with their mystery illness. They would have ben over it by then. You also claim:
“Even as the illness associated with the games became known, the Biden administration repeatedly refused to confirm the U.S. cases, and a 2022 report was withheld from both Congress and the public.
If true, the level of duplicity and dishonesty is shocking. In the U.S. alone, more than 1.2 million died and more than 111 million were made sick by this virus. Yet the Biden administration is accused of withholding this information from the world.”
HOW WAS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SUPPOSED TO TEST FOR AND CONFIRM COVID IN OCTOBER, 2019, WHEN IT HADN’T EVEN BEEN IDENTIFIED YET AND THERE WERE NO TESTS AVAILABLE? But, you have the gall to claim that, somehow, BIDEN is responsible for all of the American deaths by because he is “accused of withholding this information from the world.”
You obviously left shame behind a long time ago, Turley, but this is really low, especially in the context of Trump falsely accusing the Chinese of deliberately releasing the COVID virus, his lying about the seriousness of COVID and his pushing for fake cures. You should issue an immediate retraction and apology.
You said, and I quote , HOW WAS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SUPPOSED TO TEST FOR AND CONFIRM COVID IN OCTOBER, 2019, WHEN IT HADN’T EVEN BEEN IDENTIFIED YET AND THERE WERE NO TESTS AVAILABLE? ” Biden wasn’t president then dumbash. Your hatred of Trump is well known and the stream of invective is typical. All lies, all the time.
The point is that NO ONE could have tested for COVID in October, 2019. What was there for Biden to disclose about this? That some members of our military people became sick in October, 2019 with a mystery illness? All that would do is lead to speculation and it’s not a cover up to fail to put out information that can be misconstrued or which would lead to anti-Asian sentiment, which COVID did because of Trump’s lying and calling COVID the “China flu”. And, BTW, I was VERY sick with a serious respiratory illness in November, 2019. When my doctor examined me in his office, he had his nurse immediately administer an emergency nebulizer treatment–no waiting for an inhaler–I should have gone to the ER. I think I MIGHT have had COVID–but, we’ll never know and it doesn’t matter because COVID tests weren’t available then. I would never claim that it WAS COVID–and neither should Biden have put out unconfirmed information. For Turley to claim that some duplicity on Biden’s part resulted in COVID deaths is both stupid and irresponsible. Turley doesn’t explain, nor can he, how the course of COVID would have changed if Biden had put out speculative information that these military people had come down with COVID. WHERE did they get it? No one knows. Now, tell me, WHAT did I lie about? It is a MAGA technique to accuse people with whom you disagree of lying.
No, your point was an attempt to exonerate the Biden regime. Every single time you post. When I called you out you continue to lie. I’m done.
Michael: the only point you have is that BIDEN could not have tested in 2019, because he wasn’t in office. You are correct on that point. My point is: NO ONE could have tested the military people who got sick because there were no tests. That is NOT a lie. Turley’s piece actually makes this audacious accusation blaiming BIDEN for COVID deaths: ” As Joseph Stalin had once said, “a single death is a tragedy” and “a million deaths is a statistic.” Try more than seven million, and you have a statistic that was not worth confronting the Chinese over. What was done was done. Congress and the Trump administration are now working to reconstruct this record. There is much that we still do not know. However, the public has already paid dearly for the answers. We have more than a million questions, and not one of them is a statistic to those who loved them.”
For Turley to accuse BIDEN of somehow being responsible for “seven million” COVID deaths because his administration didn’t report a mystery illness before information about COVID had even been disseminated, and months before any testing, is more than inexcusable, slanderous, misleading and unacceptable, even for MAGA media. It would be irresponsible to retroactively claim that they had COVID when there had been no testing. And, what Turley doesn’t explain is how or why disclosing this mystery illness would have saved seven million lives.
Gigi, you have lost your credibility here, your lies, your avoidance of what has been pointed out to you, your big words are copycatted, even your “colon” after someones name is copycatted after it impressed you from another poster about a year or less ago. Michael and others have called you out on multiple occasions and you just gloss over and come in, more civilly, from another side. You are truly a waste of time, no matter what your REAL job or profession is. Take your sad wares and sell them somewhere else. (I expect in a few days or weeks, we will see the word “wares” in your posts, you are that pathetic.
I have said many times, there is no quantum of fact or proof to shake you MAGAts’ belief in the lies you absorbed from MAGA media. And, because you don’t have facts and because the crap put out by MAGA media, like today’s little piece of trash that tries to claim that Joe Biden is responsible for 7 million deaths (which is the worldwide number of reported COVID deaths) hid information about American military personnel allegedly contracting COVID in October, 2019, before it had even been identified, much less before there were any tests available, you revert to the MAGA tactic of ad hominem attacks on my character. Turley still can’t explain how or why, even if Biden had speculated that these people actually contracted COVID, that disclosing this information would have changed the worldwide course of the disease or saved lives–but that wasn’t the point of this piece–it was to divert attention away from Trump and the damage he is doing to our country and to attack Biden at every turn because things are about to get much worse and public sentiment is turning against Trump and Republicans. I have YET to be “called out” on anything–I repeatedly ask you MAGAts for citations to reliable authority, and you cannot provide any because there aren’t any. All of the above assumes, of course, that you are just a passionate MAGAt–I’m not sure of that, because I’m all but certain that John Say, at least, is paid for his lengthy epistles.
Wow, GIGI’s raging TDS is a case for the archives. As every ailment from allergies to the annual “flu” was attributed (coded) to CV-19, the statistics were horribly distorted (exaggerated), hence, great material for weak minds to sensationalize. The fact that the “annual flu” case numbers miraculously dropped to “0” zero, adds yet another layer of statistical impossibilities. For someone to come to the defense of the Biden Junta regarding their phenomenal lies during the Covid hysteria, is reflective of willful ignorance beyond the pale.
It is a MAGA media tactic to attack COVID 19 death statistics because he lied about the seriousness of COVID and couldn’t bully Drs. Fauci and Birx to go along with his lies and quack cures.. I’ve heard and seen this BS on MAGA media, that lies and says that anyone who died after COVID was found was mistakenly and deliberately mis – identified as a COVID victim just to make Trump look bad. Annual flu cases NEVER “dropped to 0” either. Another MAGA media lie. COVID was not hysteria, either–people died all over the world from this virus. It is truly disturbing that so many people fall for these lies, which parallels Hitler’s rise to power–attack scientists and intelletuals–just like Trump has done. You do not, and cannot, cite any reliable factual source for your beliefs, but in MAGALAND, facts are irrelevant.
Keyboard abuse.
“In 2020 … China seemed poised to avoid any liability for what might be the greatest act of negligence in history.” Or perhaps, professor, it wasn’t negligence but an intentional act on China’s part. The first known CoVid patients were three scientists who worked at the Wuhan lab. All three quickly died before that government went radio-silent, so-to-speak. I wouldn’t put it past China’s government to poison their own people to see what happens, then release the contagion to tourists knowning they’ll infect so many, many more people on their different paths home.
“I wouldn’t put it past China’s government to poison their own people to see what happens, then release the contagion to tourists knowning they’ll infect so many, many more people on their different paths home.”
You sort of neglected Turley’s mention the the infections at the military games. Could COVID-19 have possibly have been intended by the CCP to devastate the military personnel of foreign adversaries, rather than have been directed at general populations?
Fifty-one years ago Woodward and Bernstein brought down an American President who covered up a crime. In my opinion, the crime was serious– breaking and entering the offices of the Democratic National Committee — but to many back then it was considered a “third rate burglary” especially since nothing of real political value was found. These many years later, there are no Woodwards and Bernsteins. In fact, even they no longer are Woodward and Bernstein but have become little more than paid shills of the Democrat party. Investigative reporting, which was all the rage following Watergate, has been by replaced by “advocacy journalism”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. And, under the standards by which journalists and commentators are judged today, being flat wrong– repeatedly– is no badge of shame; instead, it is proof of one’s devotion to the cause. It is unforgivable that the Biden administration and the media intentionally lied about what they knew. There can be no doubt that the virus was a far greater threat to America than the January 6 riot and yet not one of those who covered up the truth about China and the virus has been held accountable.
If you dumped out a jar of 1,000 coins, they are not all going to land heads up. By the same token, there is something more to it than individual decisions when the media and political class en masse all abandon their traditional roles and instead cover up for China. It is no coincidence that China is ascending and has plenty of cash to throw around the globe to get its way, including in the US. That also explains why the same people are dead-set against Trump’s policy toward China, forcing it to play on a level playing field.
China is a natural geopolitical rival, whereas Russia is a natural ally of the west. One of the saddest developments after the Cold War is our State Department’s – and foreign policy establishment generally – decision to reject Russia coming into the fold of Western markets, even though they desperately wanted to.* Then, Biden’s approach to the Ukraine conflict ended up pushing Russia into China’s arms, a friendship between two natural rivals that is bad for the US. Our goal now should be to pry Russia back out of China’s arms and provide a global counterweight to China’s rise. The history of this century will be dominated by China’s ascendancy, and what we do now vis-a-vis Russia and China will have a major impact on the quality of life for another 100 years.
*Jeffrey Sachs, now a professor at Columbia with has a first-hand eyewitness account on what happened behind closed doors is worth listening to on that topic – he can easily be found on YouTube
#. I looked up Jeffrey Sachs briefly. A really scary guy…my op