The creation of a new recombinant COVID-19 virus at Boston University, viewed as a “Frankenstein virus” by many, has raised a public uproar. This is not merely a risky gain-of-function experiment on “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs)”, it is a creation of an enhanced pandemic pathogen. NO “potential” here.
What is the rationale for this statement? What is the chimeric virus that we talk about here?
A team of researchers at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories posted a paper on October 14, 2022, on BioRxiv, a preprint server for biology, revealing that they had created a lab-made COVID-19 chimeric virus with reverse genetics technology.
Specifically, they’ve swapped the S gene of the spike protein in the original SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain with the corresponding S gene from the Omicron variant. So, the lab-made Chimeric virus (Wuhan-Omi-S chimeric virus) has all the genes from the Wuhan strain, which is much more pathogenic than the Omicron strain, except the S gene, which is from the highly transmissible yet relatively mildly pathogenic Omicron strain.
According to the preprint paper, the Omicron spike-bearing virus is able to effectively and robustly escape vaccine-induced humoral immunity just like the Omicron variant. In addition, unlike the naturally occurring Omicron variant, the Wuhan-Omi-S chimeric virus efficiently replicates in cell lines and primary-like distal lung cells.
Furthermore, it has killed at least 80 percent of infected K18-hACE2 mice (a type of transgenic mice expressing human ACE2 receptors), whereas the mortality rate of the Omicron variant was zero while the Wuhan strain caused 100 percent death in two weeks in control experiments in the same transgenic mice. This 80 percent mortality in the mice model by the Wuhan-Omi-S chimeric virus was observed in a two-week period. The paper did not provide any further observations on whether the surviving 20 percent of mice eventually died faster than the control mice group infected with Omicron variants.
The defenders for this risky study stated that the chimeric virus product showed reduced pathogenicity (100 versus 80 percent mortality) when compared to Wuhan strains, so it is not a gain-of-function study. However, this is an unjustifiably optimistic statement. The study did not provide any detailed or comprehensive pathology exam of different organs in the transgenic mice infected with the Wuhan-Omi-S virus. For example, do we know that this chimeric virus has the same neuropathogenesis as the Omicron or Wuhan viruses? This study did not provide any data on that.
In addition, although this experiment was presented as a swap of the S gene on the backbone of the Wuhan strain, it could also be viewed as swapping other viral genes on the backbone of the Omicron strain, considering the overall high genome homology among different variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Rather than study individual gene motifs that might have influenced the Omicron variant’s pathogenicity, researchers at Boston University instead swapped all the pathogenicity-related viral gene motifs/sites from the Wuhan strain into the Omicron strain.
Then, this study is a bonafide proven gain-of-function study: it makes the Omicron virus obtain more virulent factors, enhancing its infectivity and pathogenicity in in vitro and in vivo experiments. And this publication did not reveal any study to test the transmissibility of the chimeric lab-made virus in animal models. Is the Wuhan-Omi-S virus more or less transmissible in animal models? Can any of the researchers in this study 100 percent guarantee that this new chimeric virus is not more transmissible in different animal models, e.g. golden hamsters, ferrets, and primates?
This study presented the main conclusion: “while the vaccine escape of Omicron is defined by 53 mutations in S, major determinants of viral pathogenicity reside outside of S.” However, it is a known fact that other genes outside S are involved in viral-host interactions at different steps of the viral life cycle and many genes outside S are relevant to viral pathogenicity in different tissues, organs, and animal hosts. So, by combining the pathogenicity-related components of the ancestral Wuhan strain and Omicron’s spike protein, the researchers would surely expect to create a virus that’s both highly deadly and highly transmissible. Even though it might be lucky that the final chimeric virus strains are less deadly and/or less transmissible than the Wuhan and/or Omicron strains, there is no guarantee that the degree of the risks or threats cannot be precisely controlled or assessed. The researchers at Boston University are intentionally playing with fire with clear knowledge of the risks involved.
So, in essence, Boston University researchers created a lab-made Omicron variant with enhanced pathogenicity. As Omicron is a clear pandemic pathogen, taking over Delta and other COVID-19 virus variants, this study has created an enhanced pandemic pathogen. Not an “enhanced pandemic potential pathogen.”
It is true that we don’t know whether this lab-made chimeric virus can out-compete natural omicron variants when co-circulating in human society. And defenders of this gain-of-function study also argued that similar recombinant variants existed early this year, the Deltacron, which contains a Delta variant backbone with an Omicron S gene. They argued that the Deltacron did not generate a pandemic wave and was quickly replaced with Omicron variants, and therefore, this experiment at Boston University did not generate additional risk. So, are these defenders arguing that humankind was simply too lucky and we need to create additional risks ourselves?
This study is absolutely playing with fire and should be totally forbidden. It is unbelievable that Boston University allowed this research to be carried out. It is an ultimate failure of the bioethics committee that evaluates biomedical research projects at Boston University.
Furthermore, this gain-of-function research project is partially funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which has denied its knowledge of these experiments. As the related grant documents and the communication between Boston University and NIAID are not currently released to the public, it is surely unverifiable whether NIAID was aware of these experiments during the whole process. Nevertheless, it suggests that the oversight mechanism to review grants related to “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs)”, set up by NIAID after the 2014 pause of all gain-of-function studies, did not work at all in this incidence.
“Let’s Get Out Of NATO”: Discontent Soars Across Europe As Russian Sanctions Backfire
Western sanctions against Russia have been considered a powerful foreign policy tool by the US and the EU to paralyze Moscow back to the ‘stone age.’ Though sanctions against Moscow have entirely backfired, sparking the worst cost-of-living crisis for Europeans in a generation.
In early September, we first noticed a wave of discontent sweeping across Europe as tens of thousands of people took to the city streets to protest soaring electricity bills and the worst inflation in decades. Some countries delivered relief packages to citizens to tame the anger, while other countries did not have the financial capacity to hand out checks.
Tens of thousands of people have marched across metro areas in France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Germany — many of them are fed up with sanctions on Russia that have sparked economic ruins for many households and businesses — but also very surprising, support for NATO’s involvement in Ukraine is waning.
There has been increasing awareness and dissent among Europeans about their countries’ leaders prioritizing NATO’s ambitions in Ukraine over their own citizens. The prioritization has been in the form of sanctions against Moscow, sparking energy hyperinflation and supplying weapons to Ukraine, which has made Moscow displeased with any country that does so. Some Europeans are now demanding NATO negotiate with Moscow to end the war so that economic turmoil can abate.
Here are the latest protests across Europe of tens of thousands of people (if not more) frustrated with high inflation and crying out anti-NATO slogans.
Otra multitudinaria Manifestación sucedió hoy en Francia 🇫🇷.
“Let’s get out of NATO!”
Another massive protest against NATO and the EU on the streets of Paris, France today. pic.twitter.com/1CRwhzBhzx
Mass protests continue in #Moldova calling for the removal of the pro-EU regime of Maya Sandu.
The Western media has completely blacked out these mass protests in Moldova. They are peddling the CIA nonsense instead blaming Russia for this. pic.twitter.com/kpvPQEk0aZ
🧵Thread of protests that are erupting all over Europe against EU, NATO, inflation, politicians, governmental control, arm sales, etc about which mainstream media is completely silent 🧵 pic.twitter.com/U8BK2veelm
Thousands of Germans in Dresden to end sanctions on Russia, they want to remain neutral. Europeans don’t want to starve and freeze for Zelensky and Ursula von der Leyen. EU media censor these demonstrations, they want war. pic.twitter.com/Lio07Yx8NG
Germany 🇩🇪 HAMBURG Peace and Freedom Demonstration 🔥🔥🔥 in Protest against the Governments Restrictions, Mandates, Anti-NATO, Inflations cost of Living and Energy (29/10/2022) pic.twitter.com/EMcEruW9Ww
WSJ pointed out that a majority of Germans strongly support Kyiv and Russia policy of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, though the popularity of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been increasing as they benefited from the souring mood of the people who have been crushed into energy poverty. AfD has called for the lift of sanctions against Russia. Their popularity has risen from 10% to 15% in 9 months.
“This is merely the silence before the storm—the discontent is great, and people do not have any sense that the government has a plausible strategy to master the crisis,” said Manfred Güllner, head of Forsa, a pollster.
Worse, the sanctions have sparked a further weakening of the economy where a recession might not be avoided this winter. Efforts by the European Central Bank to rapidly tighten its monetary policy and increase interest rates to quell inflation also have their risks.
‘Seems A Bit Odd’ – Hillary ‘Fact Checked’ As Doubts Mount Over Pelosi Attack Claims
As rumors abound across social media, new details have emerged in the hammer assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — including the eyebrow-raising news that Pelosi referred to his assailant as a “friend” when calling police.
Paul Joseph Watson summarizes it all in 5 short words: “it seems a bit odd…”
Here’s an updated account as it’s been reported by the Los Angeles Times and various other media outlets citing police sources — along with some perspective on popular speculation about the incident.
After reportedly breaking through a rear door in the very early hours of Friday morning, DePape entered the house and at some point confronted Pelosi.
Pelosi excused himself from DePape by saying he needed to use the bathroom. There, he made a surreptitious 911 call on his cellphone, close to 2:30 am. Politico cites sources who say the phone had been charging there.
When directing the police response, the San Francisco Police dispatcher relayed what Pelosi said, referring to him as “RP,” which is police jargon for “reporting party”:
“RP stated that there’s a male in the home and that he’s going to wait for his wife. RP stated that he doesn’t know who the male is, but he advised that his name is David and that he is a friend. RP sounded somewhat confused.”
Police dispatch to Paul Pelosi home:
“RP (reporting person) stated there’s a male in the home and that he’s going to wait for his wife. RP stated that he doesn’t know who the male is but he advised that his name is David and that he is a friend.” pic.twitter.com/O0HeS0s0I5
In a police response that’s far from typical in America’s cities today, cops arrived at the Pelosi house in just about 2 minutes. They knocked, and someone opened the door, though it’s not clear who.
The police observed the two men, each with one hand on a single hammer, and ordered both of them to drop it. DePape immediately pulled it from Pelosi and started hitting him with it. The cops tackled DePape and took him into custody.
There’s something of an inconsistency in the LA Times characterization of Pelosi’s 911 call. The Times article, citing police sources, first reports that Pelosi “tricked” DePape and made a surreptitious phone call, but later, the same article says “officials believe Pelosi was intentionally giving coded information because the intruder knew Pelosi was on the phone.”
Perhaps the call started surreptitiously and but then DePape overheard him, or Pelosi was at least wary of it. With that in mind, it’s conceivable Pelosi wasn’t being sincere in calling DePape a “friend,” but rather was trying to soothe the reportedly nutty DePape, who’s been described as a “psychotic, homeless addict estranged from his nudist lover and their children” — and who “talks to angels.”
If Pelosi was being overheard or fearful of it, that may also explain why the dispatcher described Pelosi as sounding “somewhat confused.” At Friday’s press conference, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said dispatcher Heather Grimes had to read between the lines of Pelosi’s call for help:
“She had to interpret what she was being told. And based on her experience and intuition, she basically figured out that there was something more to this incident than what she was being told. Her actions, in my opinion, resulted in both a higher-priority dispatch and a faster police response.”
Famously, DePape is said to have yelled “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” It’s not exactly clear when.
There are 3 cameras on one side of Pelosi’s house…. And the cops were there (with body cams) before the assault started.
Pelosi underwent surgery to “repair a skull fracture, and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” according to a statement from Nancy Pelosi’s office.
All across social media, one can find assertions that DePape was in his underwear when police arrived, with others saying both he and Pelosi were in their underwear.
Citing “sources,” San Francisco Fox affiliate KTVU on Friday reported that DePape was in his underwear.However, KTVU has retracted that claim and posted a correction at the bottom of the article: “An earlier version of this story misstated what clothing the suspect was wearing when officers found him.”
Zero Hedge hasn’t found another credible source reporting that either DePape or Pelosi were only in underwear (though, at 2 am, it would be understandable if Pelosi was.)
However, there’s underwear talk all over Twitter and other platforms, along with people misinterpreting an imprecisely worded early SFPD statement to conclude that both Pelosi and DePape were holding hammers. Caught up in the frenzy, Dinesh D’Souza is among those losing credibility points over the weekend — even as he racks up tens of thousands of likes:
Were Paul Pelosi and his attacker BOTH in their underwear? BOTH holding hammers? And the attacker didn’t strike until AFTER police were on the scene? As a movie-maker, I gotta say this script must be rejected. Nothing about the public account so far makes any sense.
Having got all that out of the way, we note that none of it stopped Hillary Clinton jumping on the bandwagon that it must have been a MAGA, QAnon conspiracy theorist… to which Elon Musk promptly replied…
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye…”
Which he has since deleted.
Nevertheless, Glenn Greenwald brings up the elephant in the media’s room…
It’s so crucial to understand the dynamic dominating journalism. Few journalists have career security.
Imagine you’re a young journalist at a big media corporation. You know if you ask these questions, Twitter will explode and it can ruin your career:https://t.co/wzF4FwEDgg
Neighbors described DePape as a homeless addict with a politics that was, until recently, left-wing, but of secondary importance to his psychotic and paranoid behavior.
“What I know about the family is that they’re very radical activists,” said one of DePape’s neighbors, a woman who only gave her first name, Trish.
“They seem very left. They are all about the Black Lives Matter movement. Gay pride. But they’re very detached from reality. They have called the cops on several of the neighbors, including us, claiming that we are plotting against them. It’s really weird to see that they are willing to be so aggressive toward somebody else who is also a lefty.”
Fact or conspiracy aside, the fact that a ‘conversation’ can be had without #InstaBan occurring seems like a positive step towards the restoration of freedom of speech… and the enabling of Americans to make their own minds up on matters – not be cajoled into one narrative uber alles.
Left-Wing EU Commissioner Warns Musk, “The Bird Will Fly By Our Rules”
Musk reportedly has plans to reduce moderation, but such plans may come into conflict with incoming EU laws concerning so-called hate speech.
Among the various challenges Elon Musk faces as the new owner of Twitter, one of his biggest might be the European Union, especially if he moves forward with many of his promised efforts to restore free speech on the platform.
And as John Cody reports for Remix News, after Musk tweeted that “the bird is free!” following his purchase of Twitter, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton warned him, writing, “In Europe, the bird will fly by our [European Union] rules.”
Breton simply wrote “DSA,” referring to the EU’s Digital Service Act, which is a broad act, but one of the fundamental elements of the act is designed to regulate and restrict speech on the web under the guise of “combating hate speech.” In essence, the DSA gives the EU broad powers to censor political dissidents and political speech it deems a threat to the power of the left-liberal establishment.
“The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act aim to create a safer digital space where the fundamental rights of users are protected and to establish a level playing field for businesses,” reads the act’s description on the European Commission website.
The European Council outlines how the DSA will operate in principle, writing: “The DSA follows the principle that what is illegal offline must also be illegal online. It aims to protect the digital space against the spread of illegal content, and to ensure the protection of users’ fundamental rights.”
“The obligations introduced are proportionate to the nature of the services concerned and tailored to the number of users, meaning that very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs) will be subject to more stringent requirements. Services with more than 45 million monthly active users in the European Union will fall into the category of very large online platforms and very large search engines.”
Musk reportedly has plans to reduce moderation, but such plans may come into conflict with the DSA, which demands platforms partake in what is likely to be aggressive content moderation.
The law is not yet in force, but it is expected to radically restrict free speech in Europe.
“The DSA will be directly applicable across the EU and will apply fifteen months or from 1 January 2024, whichever comes later, after entry into force. As regards the obligations for very large online platforms and very large online search engines, the DSA will apply from an earlier date, that is four months after their designation,” reads the site.
It is unclear what will constitute “hate speech” or “disinformation” or who will be the arbiter of these designations, but for example, the vast majority of fact-checkers working for Facebook in Central and Eastern Europe are funded by billionaire oligarch George Soros, whose money has flowed through nearly every major left-liberal NGO and establishment figure in the West, which means those opposed to mass immigration, restrictions on freedom of speech, or supporters for traditional family values, may find themselves designated as purveyors of “hate speech” and subject to fines or censorship under the DSA.
On top of the DSA, Musk undoubtedly features numerous challenges ahead, including a potential flight of advertisers who may boycott his platform, as well as app restrictions from the Google Play and Apple Store unless Musk regulates the platform according to the standards dictated by the rival tech companies. In addition, Musk could also face threats from many different directions, including, for example, hosts cutting off cloud support, such as what happened to Parler shortly after the 2020 elections. Banks could also cut off payment processing and U.S. regulators may also be able to fine and harass his platform.
The reality is that Twitter already features plenty of speech that could fall under the category of “hate speech,” by the EU’s vague definition of the word.
The European Council outlines how the DSA will operate in principle, writing:
“The DSA follows the principle that what is illegal offline must also be illegal online. It aims to protect the digital space against the spread of illegal content, and to ensure the protection of users’ fundamental rights.”
A number of organizations that are backed by billionaire oligarch George Soros and his Open Society Foundation are on the list of “stakeholders” for DSA, including Avaaz and Amnesty International. Thierry Breton is also a stakeholder, along with top tech firms such as Google, IBM, Facebook, and Twitter, along with activist NGOs like HateAid.
The official narrative promoted by the entire western political/media class is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February of this year solely because he is evil and hates freedom. He wants to conquer as much of Europe as possible because he cannot stand free democracies, because he is another Adolf Hitler.
The official narrative is that while Russia is in Ukraine solely because its leader is an evil monster like Hitler, the US is in Ukraine solely because its leaders are righteous. The United States is providing arms, military intelligence, and assistance on the ground from special ops forces and CIA officers to Ukraine, as well as implementing an unprecedented regime of economic warfare against Russia, solely because the US loves its good friends the Ukrainians and wants to protect their freedom and democracy.
If you dispute any part of the official Ukraine narrative, you are an evil monster, and a disinformation agent. Because Vladimir Putin is the same as Adolf Hitler, you are also the same as Neville Chamberlain, and are guilty of the cardinal sin of supporting appeasement.
Because you are an evil disinformation agent Neville Chamberlain appeasement monster, it is legitimate to censor you. It is legitimate to accuse you of being secretly paid by the Russian government. It is legitimate to swarm you with coordinated astroturf trolls working to shout you down and overwhelm you. It is legitimate to publish propagandistic smear pieces about you. All normal expectations of public discourse go out the window, because you are a monster, not a person.
If you are tempted to ask questions which put a wobble on the official narrative, you must resist this urge at all cost. Don’t ask why western officials, scholars and strategists have spent years warning that the actions of western governments would lead to this war. Don’t ask what people are talking about when they say the US provoked this war, or when they say the US is using this war to advance strategic agendas it has had in place for years, or when they suggest that these things might have something to do with why the US is obstructing diplomatic solutions at every turn. If you ask questions like these, you are the worst person in the world.
Questioning officials of the most powerful government in the world about the most consequential decisions being made in the world is violence, and is not allowed.
I am sorry, you all aren’t “anti war protesters”, you are dangerous propagandists who are literally making a mockery of the anti war movement.
I have never had the pleasure of responding to 🇷🇺 ridiculous internet disinformation in person before. Thank you for the opportunity ✌🏽 https://t.co/xzTLQCymgO
If you claim you are objecting to the US using proxy warfare in Ukraine on anti-war grounds, you are lying; you are not anti-war. You are only anti-war if you support the same positions on Ukraine as noted anti-war activists John Bolton, Bill Kristol, Tom Cotton, and Mike Pompeo. Anyone advocating diplomacy, de-escalation and detente is an evil warmonger, like Hitler. If you want to learn about the true anti-war position, consult reliable anti-war publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The official narrative on Ukraine is that the US empire and its media never lie or circulate propaganda about wars that the US is involved in. If you dispute this, you are lying and circulating propaganda. That’s why it’s necessary to have so much censorship and organized trolling and mass media reports reminding you how good and righteous this war is: it’s to protect you from lies and propaganda.
If any part of the official narrative on Ukraine sounds suspicious to you, this means you have been infected by Russian disinformation.
Do not breathe a word of the thoughts you’ve been thinking to anyone, or else you will be guilty of spreading Russian disinformation and will become the enemy of the free world.
Remember, good citizen: we must oppose Russian propaganda at all costs to protect our western values of free expression, free thought, free press, and free democracy.
So do not question any part of the official Ukraine narrative. Or else.
* * *
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The Virginia Military Institute is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the presence of women at the nation’s oldest state military college with an appearance by Kimberly Dark: a fat rights activist and author of lesbian fanfic who wants to “reimagine masculinity”.
“Why couldn’t we see that America has been racist forever, sexist forever?” Dark ranted in a post titled, “For those who do not want a Trump presidency — this is what we will do now.”
Under Superintendent Cedric Wins, this is what the Virginia Military Institute has become.
Young men who once turned to VMI for its tradition of excellence and were eager to serve their country are now going elsewhere.
“How have you benefited from adherence to your gender role?” a VMI diversity training presentation asks.
The resources for it included journal articles like, “How Military Service Members Reinforce Hegemonic Masculinity.” There’s not meant to be any room for “hegemonic masculinity” at an institution whose students experience spartan living and the warrior tradition.
The institution that gave us Patton, Marshall and Byrd now asks about your “gender role”, urges you to reimagine “masculinity” and spews hate toward anyone who happens to be white.
VMI’s Preston Library’s DEI resources features “The History of White People” and “White Guys on Campus” discussing “whiteness” and the “habits of racism among white male undergraduates” along with the racist ravings of Ibram X. Kendi in “How to Be an Antiracist”, Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me”.
The message at VMI is one of undisguised loathing for white people, injecting the ugliest racist concepts of critical race theory directly into the campus dialogue while trying to silence critics.
Superintendent Wins, VMI’s woke head, has been accused of undermining its proud tradition and driving away cadets. His “One Corps, One VMI Unifying Action Plan” puts DEI at the heart of VMI and claims that it will “empower Cadets to gain strength through diversity, acceptance by inclusion”. But the cadets aren’t coming.
Enrollment for the new VMI class fell by 25%.
Wins blamed the pandemic and even falling birth rates, but that fails to explain why the number of freshmen fell from 522 in 2020 and 496 in 2021, to 375 now.
It clearly wasn’t the pandemic. Were those the birth rates kicking in?
The VMI Inclusive Excellence plan called for pushing “diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice” on students, faculty and alumni. It was based on the One Virginia Plan which declared that “Inequity is rooted in America’s foundation.”
VMI’s Board of Visitors had already hosted a state equity official pushing critical race theory and the hatred toward white people of “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo. A good deal of effort is being spent on eliminating, renaming and “recontextualizing” historical elements of VMI’s legacy. And VMI’s woke personnel are overtly dismissive. A faculty member insisted, “We really aren’t military. I have a bird on my shoulder – doesn’t mean anything – just I am a field professor, So – compare us more to University of Maryland than a military academy.”
VMI’s DEI training included “White Like Me: Race, Racism, and White Privilege in America.”
According to the video, “white privilege” is “built into the very foundations of the country.” The video, with its racist attacks on white people, its partisan attacks on Republicans and promotion of Obama shows where VMI’s woke leadership wants it to be.
Another video, “Disarm Hate”, uses the Islamic terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub to “demand LGBTQIA equal rights, fight the NRA and challenge America’s obsession with gun violence.”
Critics of critical race theory at VMI have spoken out through the Spirit of VMI PAC. Gov. Youngkin’s victory has brought a fresh wind of change to the racist equity systems imposed in the Northam era. But VMI’s woke leaders are doing their best to turn the proud institution into just another woke college campus. And the fall in enrollment shows that it’s working.
Superintendent Wins has angrily fought with VMI alumni working to defend its proud traditions in clashes that have gone public. Arguing over VMI’s massive spending on “equity”, the superintendent railed at a critic, “You have no understanding of DEI or what it means, or how much of the funding for DEI is represented in our request.”
To see what DEI means, just go to VMI’s DEI resources list assembled by Lt. Col. Ticen and Maj. Carroll that includes Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me” which states that the 9/11 firefighters and police officers “were not human to me” and Ibram X Kendi’s “How To Be an Antiracist” which contends that, “The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a white ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a race-neutral one.”
If there’s any ambiguity left about how much the VMI administration loathes and discriminates against white people, there’s a direct link of “anti-racism resources” as a “resource to white people”. Black people and other races, it’s understood, cannot be racist. Only white people.
The resources also include not only the 1619 Project, which claims that America was built on racism, but also “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” and Howard Zinn.
While trying to explain why students weren’t coming to VMI, Superintendent Win blamed, among other things, “Ideological differences among a divided alumni base.”
But the divisions aren’t among the patriotic alumni who served their country, they were imposed by Win and leftists who are making VMI a divisive place defined by the ugliest racism.
“Misinformation regarding our initiative for diversity, equity and inclusion and the thought, the notion, the misinformation about the institute and what it’s doing or what it’s not doing with critical race theory is certainly having an impact, we believe,” Win complained.
Except it’s not “misinformation”. It’s the DEI agenda that’s right there in VMI’s resources.
The Virginia Military Institute deserves better than Win and wokeness. So do the great men who came out of it. And their nation that needs the service of the heroes of tomorrow.
If approved by Illinois voters in November, Amendment 1 will give government teachers’ unions an unfettered constitutional right to demand not just anything in their interests, but in what they see as the interests of every Illinoisan. The amendment is not limited to employee matters at the workplace.
Don’t take my word for that. Look at the first sentence of the argument in favor of it as written in the official summary as published by the Illinois Secretary of State: “This amendment will protect workers’ and others’ safety.” [Emphasis added.]
That particular sentence is just about safety, but it shows the broad interpretation of the amendment beyond the workplace that government unions will assert. The language of the amendment itself supports that broad interpretation, and will extend to anybody’s “economic welfare,” which is pretty much everything. **
What will government unions, especially radical teachers’ unions, demand with that new constitutional right?
The Chicago Teachers Union has long been quite open about its purpose. It sees itself as the vanguard of a national movement, led by unions like itself, that is textbook Marxism.
That purpose is well documented. It goes beyond the radical curriculum they teach in schools and encompasses an entire rearrangement of how America works.
Among the first things we wrote about on this site, ten years ago, was the role of the CTU and other teachers’ unions at a Marxism conference held that year:
The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond” between Socialism and teachers’ unions according to reports, and Chicago teachers were on the stage. Chicago Teachers Union [then] VP Jesse Sharkey spoke at one breakout session. Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike….”
Since then, militant radicalism has become still more firmly embedded in the CTU. That history is well documented – quite proudly by radicals themselves. The International Socialist Review, for example, lays out a good history of the CTU, saying the CTU “transcended a simple labor dispute and was transformed into a social movement, with the teachers fusing their struggle with that of the community they serve…joining in the Occupy Chicago movement that pointed out the root of societal problems—social and economic inequality.”
A Chicago Magazine column this year also described the “radical transformation” of the CTU beyond schools, citing a recent book on the subject:
“From milquetoast to militant” is how Jane F. McAlevey described the union’s evolution in her 2016 book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. “If the labor movement’s instinct has been to reduce demands in order to sound reasonable, the new CTU took the opposite approach,” McAlevey wrote. “They led every meeting with school-based discussions of billionaires, banks and racism.”
It cites current CTU president Stacy Davis Gates saying, “There was a movement afoot to say our union has to be more than a place that bargains a contract for a finite amount of time…. Our union couldn’t be silent on what was happening to the children in the city, the families in the city.”
And there was the solidarity mission of a delegation of CTU members to Nicolás Maduro’s communist Venezuela two years ago.
Today, the majority faction in the CTU is CORE, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators. It’s “engaged in direct action such as protests and shouting down speakers at hearings, and developed a critique of education reform that connected school closings to other issues in Chicago, like the underdevelopment of Black and brown neighborhoods, gentrification, and financialization, as described here.
The CTU is not alone. It’s the Chicago affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, which is equally radical and militant. It recently pledged $1 million to support the election to Chicago Mayor of Brandon Johnson, a CTU organizer who is already a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Though the CTU today is technically limited to bargaining for workplace demands, it has already advocated for things like universal basic income, rent control and housing assistance.
If amendment 1 passes, however, all those matters and more will be constitutionally guaranteed as legitimate demands in contract negotiations. Rest assured that the CTU and other teachers unions will be making those demands.
Among those demands will be an end to parental control over schools. Parents across the nation have risen up against political indoctrination and sexually explicit “gender affirmation “in schools. Teachers unions aren’t happy with that and want control over curriculum to the exclusion of parents. Amendment 1 will give them a constitutional right to restrict or eliminate parental control.
Another absurdity of Amendment 1 is that teachers anywhere in Illinois who share the CTU’s vision could choose to have the CTU represent then in the bargaining process. That’s because workers anywhere, under the amendment, would have the right to bargain through representatives of their own choosing. In other words, the more radical teachers could opt out of having a different union represent them and choose the CTU or any other representative.
Militant radicals are chomping at the bit for the constitutional right Amendment 1 will give them: the right to include their vision of a national, Marxist workers’ revolution in their contract demands.
Did NikiLeaks Just Kill The Dovish Fed Narrative He Launched
As Goldman’s Matt Fleury wrote earlier today, since Nick Timiraos, also known as NikiLeaks, tweeted that the Fed was going to slow its pace of hiking last Friday…
The Fed is barreling towards a fourth straight 75-basis-point rate rise at the November FOMC meeting.
⁰That meeting could serve as a critical staging ground for future plans, including whether and how to step down to 50 basis points in December https://t.co/vPMSXDjHL8
… we have had one of the largest bouts of financial conditions easing this century.
But, according to the Goldman trader, in the latest series of NikiLeaks tweets this morning, the WSJ’s Fed mouthpiece is seen as aggressively trying to dial that back ahead of the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday by suggesting that the US consumer is much stronger than otherwise perceived (this is dead wrong, of course, but as a reminder, this is all about setting up the narrative that contains the Fed’s reaction function):
“Consumers have a big cushion of savings. Corporations have lowered their debt-service costs. For the Fed, a more resilient private sector means that when it comes to rate rises, the peak or “terminal” policy rate may be higher than expected“ (Cash-Rich Consumers Could Mean Higher Interest Rates for Longer).
Household debt service costs as a share of income is historically low
One measure of private sector balance sheets shows they are healthier than on the eve of any U.S. recession since the 1950s, according to Goldman Sachs pic.twitter.com/JP43dlbsNP
As Fleury adds, one particular comment in the WSJ article was “This is not the earnings season the [Fed] wanted to see” – indeed this slide from Unilever results this week highlights that corporations are pushing through price increases at increasing pace.
Incidentally, Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius updated his Fed hike estimates yesterday heading into this week’s FOMC and adds a 25bp hike at the March meeting. Which simply means that he is now aligned with consensus. His note is available to pro subs in the usual place.
Finally, here is Nikileaks appearing on the Sunday morning circuit, with an even more vocal hawkish warning “Even though the risk of doing too much is a recession, the risk of not doing enough is that inflation just stays high and you have to have a bigger downturn later.”
Translation: those who think the Fed would not dare crash the market 6 days before the midterms may want to reassess.
The Federal Reserve can’t risk not getting on top of inflation, The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos says.
“Even though the risk of doing too much is a recession, the risk of not doing enough is that inflation just stays high and you have to have a bigger downturn later.” pic.twitter.com/C4XTRysqWm
Newly Discovered Skyscraper-Sized Asteroid To Pass Earth On Halloween
A newly discovered asteroid, known as 2022 RM4, is expected to pass Earth at 52,500 mph, or about 68 times the speed of sound, late Halloween night or early Tuesday, reported USA Today.
According to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, 2022 RM4 has an estimated diameter of 1,083-2,428 feet, or about the size of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper.
The asteroid will pass surprisingly close to Earth — at about six times the Earth-Moon distance — or about 143 million miles. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has classified it as a Near Earth Object (NEO) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).
“This is very close for an asteroid this size,” tweeted amateur astronomer Tony Dunn.
No danger, but newly-discovered asteroid 2022 RM4 will pass less than 6 lunar distances on November 1. Possibly as wide as 740 meters, it will brighten to mag 14.3, well within reach of backyard telescopes. @unistellar
This is very close for an asteroid this size. #2022RM4pic.twitter.com/Z8khblg3Gq
USA Today said astronomers at the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Haleakala, Hawaii, discovered 2022 RM4 on Sept. 12.
The asteroid will be close enough to Earth that astronomers can record footage of it passing using telescopes.
NASA said Earth faces no immediate danger from 2022 RM4. But in the future, Earth could face a possible apocalyptic asteroid collision with other NEOs. To prevent this, the space agency is preparing to strengthen planetary defenses.
In late September, the space agency successfully slammed a spacecraft into a non-hazardous asteroid Dimorphos and knocked it off course. The future of safeguarding Earth from asteroids could come from NASA and other space agencies catapulting suicide spacecraft into NEOs.
I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation. Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war.`
U.S. President Joe Biden, who doesn’t always seem to be quite sure where he is or what he is supposed to be saying, is being propped up in the I-am-a-bigger-man-than-you contest with Russian President Vladimir Putin by a coterie of rabid warmongers who have orchestrated over 20 years of military fiascos. They are salivating at the prospect of taking on Russia, and then, if there is any habitation left on the globe, China.
Trapped in the polarizing mindset of the Cold War — where any effort to de-escalate conflicts through diplomacy is considered appeasement, a perfidious Munich moment — they smugly push the human species closer and closer toward obliteration. Unfortunately for us, one of these true believers is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned. “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.”
You know we are in trouble when former Donald Trump is the voice of reason.
“We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in world war three” the former U.S. president said. “And there will be nothing left of our planet — all because stupid people didn’t have a clue … They don’t understand what they’re dealing with, the power of nuclear.”
I dealt with many of these ideologues — David Petraeus, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland — as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Once you strip away their chest full of medals or fancy degrees, you find shallow men and women, craven careerists who obsequiously serve the war industry that ensures their promotions, pays the budgets of their think tanks and showers them with money as board members of military contractors.
They are the pimps of war. If you reported on them, as I did, you would not sleep well at night. They are vain enough and stupid enough to blow up the world long before we go extinct because of the climate crisis, which they have also dutifully accelerated.
If, as Joe Biden says, Putin is “not joking” about using nuclear weapons and we risk nuclear “Armageddon,” why isn’t Biden on the phone to Putin? Why doesn’t he follow the example of John F. Kennedy, who repeatedly communicated with Nikita Khrushchev to negotiate an end to the Cuban missile crisis?
Kennedy, who unlike Biden served in the military, knew the obtuseness of generals. He had the good sense to ignore Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff and head of the Strategic Air Command, as well as the model for General Jack D. Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove,” who urged Kennedy to bomb the Cuban missile bases, an act that would have probably ignited a nuclear war. Biden is not made of the same stuff.
Why is Washington sending $50 billion in arms and assistance to sustain the conflict in Ukraine and promising billions more for “as long as it takes”? Why did Washington and Whitehall dissuade Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky, a former stand-up comic who has been magically transformed by these war lovers into the new Winston Churchill, from pursuing negotiations with Moscow, set up by Turkey? Why do they believe that militarily humiliating Putin, whom they are also determined to remove from power, won’t lead him to do the unthinkable in a final act of desperation?
Moscow strongly implied it would use nuclear weapons in response to a “threat” to its “territorial integrity” and the pimps of war shouted down anyone who expressed concern that we all might go up in mushroom clouds, labeling them traitors who are weakening Ukrainian and Western resolve.
Giddy at the battlefield losses suffered by Russia, they poke the Russian bear with ever greater ferocity. The Pentagon helped plan Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive, and the C.I.A. passes on battlefield intelligence. The U.S. is slipping, as we did in Vietnam, from advising, arming, funding and supporting, into fighting.
None of this is helped by Zelensky’s suggestion that, to deter the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, NATO should launch “preventive strikes.”
“Waiting for the nuclear strikes first and then to say ‘what’s going to happen to them.’ No! There is a need to review the way the pressure is being exerted. So there is a need to review this procedure,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskovsaid the remarks, which Zelensky tried to roll back, were “nothing else than a call to start a world war.”
The West has been baiting Moscow for decades. I reported from Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. I watched these militarists set out to build what they called a unipolar world — a world where they alone ruled.
First, they broke promises not to expand NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany. Then they broke promises not to “permanently station substantial combat forces” in the new NATO member countries in Eastern and Central Europe. Then they broke promises not to station missile systems along Russia’s border. Then they broke promises not to interfere in the internal affairs of border states such as Ukraine, orchestrating the 2014 coup that ousted the elected government of Victor Yanukovich, replacing it with an anti-Russian — fascistaligned — government, which, in turn, led to an eight-year-long civil war, as the Russian populated regions in the east sought independence from Kiev.
They armed Ukraine with NATO weapons and trained 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers after the coup. Then they recruited neutral Finland and Sweden into NATO. Now the U.S. is being asked to send advanced long-range missile systems to Ukraine, which Russia says would make the U.S. “a direct party to the conflict.” But blinded by hubris and lacking any understanding of geopolitics, they push us, like the hapless generals in the Austro-Hungarian empire, towards catastrophe.
The West calls for total victory. Russia annexes four Ukrainian provinces. The Westhelps Ukraine bomb the Kerch Bridge. Russia rains missiles down on Ukrainian cities. The West gives Ukraine sophisticated air defense systems. The West gloats over Russian losses. Russia introduces conscription. Now Russia carries out drone and cruise missile attacks on power, sewage and water treatment plants. Where does it end?
“Is the United States, for example, trying to help bring an end to this conflict, through a settlement that would allow for a sovereign Ukraine and some kind of relationship between the United States and Russia?” a New York Timeseditorial asks. “Or is the United States now trying to weaken Russia permanently? Has the administration’s goal shifted to destabilizing Putin or having him removed? Does the United States intend to hold Putin accountable as a war criminal? Or is the goal to try to avoid a wider war — and if so, how does crowing about providing U.S. intelligence to kill Russians and sink one of their ships achieve this?”
No one has any answers.
The Times editorial ridicules the folly of attempting to recapture all of Ukrainian territory, especially those territories populated by ethnic Russians.
“A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal,” it reads. “Though Russia’s planning and fighting have been surprisingly sloppy, Russia remains too strong, and Mr. Putin has invested too much personal prestige in the invasion to back down.”
But common sense, along with realistic military objectives and an equitable peace, is overpowered by the intoxication of war.
On Oct. 17, NATO countries began a two-week-long exercise in Europe, called Steadfast Noon, in which 60 aircraft, including fighter jets and long-range bombers flown in from Minot Air Base in North Dakota are simulating dropping thermonuclear bombs on European targets. This exercise happens annually. But the timing is nevertheless ominous. The U.S. has some 150 “tactical” nuclear warheads stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Ukraine will be a long and costly war of attrition, one that will leave much of Ukraine in ruins and hundreds of thousands of families convulsed by lifelong grief. If NATO prevails and Putin feels his hold on power is in jeopardy, what will stop him from lashing out in desperation? Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of tactical nukes, weapons that can kill tens of thousands if used on a city. It also possesses nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads. Putin does not want to end up, like his Serbian allies Slobodan Miloševic and Ratko Mladic, as a convicted war criminal in the Hague. Nor does he want to go the way of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. What will stop him from upping the ante if he feels cornered?
There is something grimly cavalier about how political, military and intelligence chiefs, including C.I.A. Director William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, agree about the danger of humiliating and defeating Putin and the specter of nuclear war.
“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said in remarks at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Former C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta, who also served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, wrote this month that U.S. intelligence agencies believe the odds of the war in Ukraine spiraling into a nuclear war are as high as 1-in-4.
The director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, echoed this warning, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that if Putin believed there was an existential threat to Russia, he could resort to nuclear weapons.
“We do think that [Putin’s perception of an existential threat] could be the case in the event that he perceives that he is losing the war in Ukraine, and that NATO in effect is either intervening or about to intervene in that context, which would obviously contribute to a perception that he is about to lose the war in Ukraine,” Haines said.
“As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength … Russia likely will increasingly rely on itsnuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier wrote in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s threat assessment submitted to the same Armed Services Committee at the end of April.
Given these assessments, why don’t Burns, Panetta, Haines and Berrier, urgently advocate diplomacy with Russia to de-escalate the nuclear threat?
This war should never have happened. The U.S. was well aware it was provoking Russia. But it was drunk on its own power, especially as it emerged as the world’s sole superpower at the end of the Cold War, and besides, there were billions in profits to be made in arms sales to new NATO members.
In 2008, when Burns was serving as the ambassador to Moscow, he wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
Sixty-six U.N. members, most from the Global South, have called for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, as required by the U.N. Charter. But few of the big power players are listening.
If you think nuclear war can’t happen, pay a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These Japanese cities had no military value. They were wiped out because most of the rest of Japan’s urban centers had already been destroyed by saturation bombing campaigns directed by LeMay. The U.S. knew Japan was crippled and ready to surrender, but it wanted to send a message to the Soviet Union that with its new atomic weapons it was going to dominate the world.
We saw how that turned out.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
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