Democrats and their Media Tribe Beat the Drums toward Armed Conflict in Ukraine

Where are the anti-war voices at the NYT, WP and the Democratic Party? The NYT (Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman) stupidly urged us to go to war in Iraq and they haven't learned a damned thing. Watch Joe Scarborough's hawkish rant at 30 sec mark of this video. It's surreal. What real national interest does the US have in the Ukraine that we are willing to risk military action against a country with well-stocked nuclear arsenal? And where do we hear anti-war voices on the mainstream media? FOX. This is insane. Here is Glenn Greenwald's comment on this bizarre situation:

Recent headline in the NYT:

Recent item in the Washington Post:

Continue ReadingDemocrats and their Media Tribe Beat the Drums toward Armed Conflict in Ukraine

NYT Offers a Real Conversation about Transgender Medical Treatments

Andrew Sullivan points out that the NYT has finally decided to have a mature reasoned discussion about transgender medical treatments. Hopefully, reasoned discussion involving pro's and con's and real evidence will be the new narrative on this topic, now that Abigail Shrier has been treated like a piñata for two years for the crime of doing what the NYT is finally now doing.

An excerpt from this NYT article:

The new standards state that clinicians should facilitate an “open exploration” of gender with adolescents and their families, without pushing them in one direction or another. But the guidelines recommend restricting the use of medications and surgeries, partly because of their medical risks.

Puberty blockers, for example, can impede bone development, though evidence so far suggests it resumes once puberty is initiated. And if taken in the early phase of puberty, blockers and hormones lead to fertility loss. Patients and their families should be counseled about these risks, the standards say, and if preserving fertility is a priority, drugs should be delayed until a more advanced stage of puberty.

[Added Jan 14]

Andrew Sullivan:

"Here’s the truth that the NYT was finally forced to acknowledge: “Clinicians are divided” over the role of mental health counseling before making irreversible changes to a child’s body. Among those who are urging more counseling and caution for kids are ground-breaking transgender surgeons. This very public divide was first aired by Abigail Shrier a few months ago on Bari’s Substack, of course, where a trans pioneer in sex-change surgery opined: “It is my considered opinion that due to some of the … I’ll call it just ‘sloppy,’ sloppy healthcare work, that we’re going to have more young adults who will regret having gone through this process.” Oof.

The NYT piece also concedes another key fact: that puberty blockers are neither harmless nor totally reversible . . .

I would think that, just as a general rule, minors making permanent, life-changing decisions should receive more psychological treatment than adults. How on earth is this not the default? In what other field of medicine do patients diagnose themselves, and that alone is justification for dramatic, irreversible medication?"

Continue ReadingNYT Offers a Real Conversation about Transgender Medical Treatments

Happy Update on COVID Risk and Left-Wing Media Suppression of the Good News

Today's comments by the CDC's Director Rochelle Walensky suggest that there is very little risk vaccinated people, and that there is not a good reason to keep worrying about serious illness or death from COVID if one is vaccinated. You can watch her make these comments at this video. Here is an excerpt:

ABC "GOOD MORNING AMERICA" HOST: I want to ask you about the encouraging headlines we're talking about this morning, a new studying talking about just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness. Given that, is it time to rethink how we're living with this virus if it is potentially here to stay?

CDC DIRECTOR ROCHELLE WALENSKY: A really important study if I may summarize it, a study of 1.2 million people who are vaccinated between December and October demonstrated that severe disease occurred 0.015% of the people who receive their primary series. And death in 0.003% of those people.

The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities.

So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.

To put these number in perspective, here are these two risk numbers converted to x out of 100,000:

10/100,000 vaccinated people will experience "severe disease" as a result of COVID.

3/100,000 vaccinated people will die of COVID. This website lists 50 maladies more likely to kill a vaccinated person than COVID.

Did major media outlets report this good news?  I suspected that left-wing media would suppress these statistics and I was correct.

The New York Times has not mentioned Walensky's comments. Instead, here's today's NYT headline: "Covid Live Updates: U.S. Hospitalizations Break Record as Omicron Surges U.S. insurers must cover eight at-home tests each month, the Biden administration says. Chicago’s public schools canceled Monday’s classes."

NPR also fails to mention Walensky's comments. Instead, today's headline are: "How to get insurance to pay for at-home COVID tests, according to the White House."

The Washington Post has not mentioned Walensky's comments either, except in a story that buries the lede, titled: "Rochelle Walensky is not good at this." Today's other WP headline: "U.S. poised to break record 142,000 covid-19 hospitalizations: But it may get much worse. Already struggling hospitals could house about 300,000 covid patients later this month if models are correct."

MSNBC did not report on Walensky's comments either. Instead, here is the MSNBC COVID headline: "Supreme Court killing Covid vaccine mandates leaves Biden with (some) options."

Walensky's comments have been widely published in other publications, none of them known as left-wing sources. For now, I will spare you my highly cynical thoughts about why this good COVID news is not being reported by left-wing media, but it didn't surprise me in the least.

Continue ReadingHappy Update on COVID Risk and Left-Wing Media Suppression of the Good News

About the COVID “Trusted News Network”

I'm still in the process of watching Joe Rogan's fascinating interview of Dr. Robert Malone.

Why might we want to listen to Malone (even though his Twitter account of 500,000 followers was suspended by Twitter two days ago)? Consider this brief description of his accomplishments:

Dr. Robert Malone is the inventor of the nine original mRNA vaccine patents, which were originally filed in 1989 (including both the idea of mRNA vaccines and the original proof of principle experiments) and RNA transfection. Dr. Malone, has close to 100 peer-reviewed publications which have been cited over 12,000 times. Since January 2020, Dr. Malone has been leading a large team focused on clinical research design, drug development, computer modeling and mechanisms of action of repurposed drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Malone is the Medical Director of The Unity Project, a group of 300 organizations across the US standing against mandated COVID vaccines for children. He is also the President of the Global Covid Summit, an organization of over 16,000 doctors and scientists committed to speaking truth to power about COVID pandemic research and treatment.

Malone's interview is leaving me with the concern about who in the hell I can trust about anything at all related to COVID. I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking that the mainstreams news messaging about COVID is too pretty, too consistent, too sterilized.

Which brings me to a related point. Malone mentions and describes the "Trusted News Network," a truth commission of sorts established by many large media players. I'm merely beginning my education of the function of that Network, but wanted to share this link as I move forward.  It is from an article by Elizabeth Woodworth titled "COVID-19 and the Shadowy “Trusted News Initiative”" that begins with this paragraph:

What do the inventor of mRNA technology; the lead author of the most downloaded paper on Covid-19 in the American Journal of Medicine; a former editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology; renowned epidemiologists at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford; and France’s leading microbiologist – have in common?They have all been censored by a repressive media network that most people have never heard of. This network has outrageously conceived and conveyed a “monopoly of legitimate information.”

Here are a few excerpts:

Two weeks after WHO announced the Covid-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020, Canada’s CBC reported that the Trusted News Initiative had announced plans “to tackle harmful coronavirus disinformation.”

“Starting today, partners in the Trusted News Initiative will alert each other to disinformation about coronavirus, including ‘imposter content’ purporting to come from trusted sources. Such content will be reviewed promptly to ensure that disinformation is not republished.” [xiii]

Woodworth further reports:

An international process of editorial standardization has delivered unprecedented news coverage of the monopolized message:

The pandemic threatens the survival of all humanity

There is no therapy to cure the sick

It is necessary to confine the whole population, and

The delivery will come only from a vaccine.[iii]

Many people have been dismayed by the singularity of this propaganda, and how it could possibly have been achieved. That is the subject of this study.

Fascinating and disturbing.  Agreeing as a group to report any version of "truth" inevitably conflicts with what should be the job of a serious journalist:  To follow the facts wherever they lead.  The proper way to do journalism inevitably leads to different interpretations and even different relevant facts.  Journalism should lead to an ever-churning cacophony that will continually be processed in the marketplace of ideas. The Trusted Network appears to be a "truth-cartel" aimed at justifying pre-determined conclusions, which is exactly what is bearing out when one follows the censorship of news providers and social media.

Continue ReadingAbout the COVID “Trusted News Network”

Julian Assange Attacked by a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Glenn Greenwald points out more media corruption regarding Julian Assange:

Two of the television outlets on which American liberals rely most for their news — NBC News and CNN — have spent the last six years hiring a virtual army of former CIA operatives, FBI officials, NSA spies, Pentagon chiefs, and DOJ prosecutors to work in their newsrooms. The multiple ways in which journalism is fundamentally corrupted by this spectacle are all vividly illustrated by a new article from NBC News that urges the prosecution and extradition of Julian Assange, claiming that the WikiLeaks founder, once on U.S. soil, will finally provide the long-elusive proof that Trump criminally conspired with Russia.

The NBC article is written by former FBI Assistant Director and current NBC News employee Frank Figliuzzi, who played a central role during the Obama years in the FBI's attempt to investigate and criminalize Assange: a rather relevant fact concealed by NBC when publishing this. But this is how U.S. security state agents now directly control corporate news outlets.

Continue ReadingJulian Assange Attacked by a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing