Megyn Kelly Interviews The Fifth Column (Excerpt)

Excerpt of Megyn Kelly's interview of the three hosts of The Fifth Column Podcast (which I follow and recommend). Two topics here: A) The refusal of some key advocates for social justice" to debate their views publicly, and B) Acknowledgment that several of the participants to this discussion initially fell for the Trump-Russia propaganda.

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Jeffrey Sachs Discusses the Death of the Washington Post

Jeffrey Sachs:

I had a chat with a longtime friend and actually a classmate of mine from Harvard from decades ago, who was a senior reporter at one of the most important newspapers. I said, "You know what? I think the US did it." And he said, "Of course, the US did it. Who else?" And I said, Hmm, maybe your paper could mention something like that, but just today said "The Russians did it." He said, "Come on, Jeff, come on!" I said, "Are you kidding? Could we have a serious discussion of this?" And he said to me, "You know, the editors not so interested in that."

This is a friend from decades. I said, "You know, when I was young, I turned to your newspaper, because of Watergate, because of the Pentagon Papers. And I loved it. And he said to me, "That paper is so dead and gone, Jeff, you have to understand that."

This a really talented guy. A lead journalist and he's telling me the paper that I love is dead and gone.

If you asked me why, I really cannot figure it out why your paper doesn't want to beat the government over the head when it tells ridiculous stories like "Nord Stream was was was blown up by six people on a boat," like they tried for one day. Okay, come on. This was this was put out by serious media because it was almost a joke from the intelligence agency. Why these media are so in line with official narratives? I don't fully understand. I know all the theories, money, advertising, power and many other things. But the truth is, it's dreadful compared to what it was 40 years ago. Dreadful. And it's gotten a lot worse.

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The Four Principles of Why Sex is Binary

In order to deal with any controversy, including biology, it's important to get the facts right first. Only after we understand the basic facts can we discuss the ramifications of those facts, including the politics and morality. At the Paradox Institute, Zach Elliot has created memes and videos setting forth the fundamental principles of the biology of sex, a topic that was completely uncontroversial until three years ago, when ideologists reverse-engineered the "facts" based on political preferences.

Zach Elliot of the Paradox Institute has created this easy to understand chart:

For the full collection of short information videos regarding the biology of sex, visit Paradox Institute. For instance, see this video on "The Biology of Sex."

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“No One is Safe”: The Many Stages of the COVID Messaging Campaign.

Matt Orfalea offers a new collection of the many stages of the Covid-19 messaging campaign, including a collective roar against “asking questions” or “doing your own research.”

Matt Taibbi follows up with this article: "Looking Back on the Sadism of the Covid-19 Shaming Campaign: As Matt Orfalea's new video shows, Apologies are due for the media campaign against "the unvaccinated," which unveiled open cruelty as public policy strategy." An excerpt:

I got the shot and never advised people not to get vaccinated. I couldn’t imagine an area where I was less qualified to give advice. But this is the point: the same people Orf shows picking up torches and railing with bloodcurdling certainty against “the unvaccinated” are nearly all people who knew as little as me, and whose beliefs about the vaccine were at best secondhand.

You’re disgusted at those who “do their own research”? What do you think journalism is? None of us do lab experiments. The job is always an imperfect effort to figure out which sources are most trustworthy, and because even the most credentialed often screw up, we always need to leave room for consensus proving wrong.

In this case one didn’t need a microbiology degree to recognize something about Covid-19 messaging was off. From flip-flops about masks (an “evolving situation,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said) to unwillingness to be frank in discussing natural immunity or risks to children, even casual news-readers saw confusion in the ranks of senior officials. Later, a series of reversals on key questions — first about whether the vaccine prevented contraction, then about whether it prevented transmission — left even people who wanted to follow official advice unsure of what to do.

I hope Matt’s video survives as a warning. There is still a lot of investigation to be done, in particular about the origins of the pandemic — certain segments of the national audience may still be in for a shock or two there — but as Matt shows, we already see a cautionary tale about faulty information being used to gin up real hatred.

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