What happened to “Health Freedom!” And “My Body, My Choice!” As usual, freedom, to them , only extends to “you are absolutely free to agree with our position unquestioningly. Nothing else.”
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Yep. And:
Disagreement = You’re cancelling me!
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I thought that’s what that was…
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The WSJ non-paywall article:
The Department of Energy, apparently says it makes that assessment with “low confidence” so it seems like the headlines here are spinning what they said. I don’t know if ANY of the agencies have said with “high confidence” that it came from a lab leak…
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That’s just the right source, too. Everyone I know looks to the Department of Energy for cutting edge… forensic epidemiology!?!
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Lab leak or not, 
did themselves no favours by initially allowing international travel from Wuhan while restricting domestic travel, by obscuring the severity of the outbreak, and by obstructing the WHO’s initial investigations. I doubt we will find out anything with “high confidence” until the potential damage from the subsequent fall out is tolerable, economically and politically, to whomever reveals that info.
The “low confidence” leak, to me, seems to be either one individual that is really upset and taking a risk, or that the leak is a trial balloon to see how reacts. Right now, I suspect the latter, given 's dubious role in the 
war on 
… 
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This matters, though. Because if the idea that it was a lab leak gains greater legitimacy if it is not true, it makes further saber-rattling against China becomes more acceptable and even “common sense”… This coupled with the discussions about whether or not China is gonna re-arm Russia makes a war footing MORE possible. Given other things happening, I have a lot of skepticism about this coming out now, given the make up of Congress, and who is really in charge of the GOP in the house right now.
It could also be that it’s a right winger, seeking to further destabilize our political systems and push us further into rhetorical conflict with China. A war footing makes it easier for the right wing to gain control, because of the (erroneous) idea that the “left” is bad with war (and with money - neither of which is true).
And yes, China fucked up their initial response, but let’s not forget how the US ended up completely fucking up the pandemic response, including a genocical policy by the Trump administration to avoid a national strategy because at the time, it was mostly in blue cities… And let’s not forget the spike in anti-Asian violence thanks to the “China virus” rhetoric… A million people died because of how the Trump administration maliciously fumbled the response, in a variety of ways.
But either way, the Biden administration is looking into it…
But the way the headlines are worded here only plays into the right wing conspiracy theory machine that Biden is covering up for China… And that, maybe more than anything else, makes me a bit suspect. The Department of energy, even under Biden, likely has right wing partisans, aligned with the oil lobby, within it’s ranks, who would benefit from pushing these lines of belief.
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The whole thing is in no way more credible than a year ago, FFS. These “reports” are FUD.
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That’s what it seems like to me… but as I said, since it plays into right wing conspiracy theories, the “leak” of this “change” likely comes from the far right members of Congress. But it’s out there now, has been legitimize by the WSJ (a newspaper some STILL take seriously, for some reason), and will find a welcome home on the right wing media landscape, and be endlessly echoed and pushed, and adopted into the worldview of many on the right.
That fact ALONE should be enough to make us all take this claim with a grain of salt.
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Wow. I’m glad I wasn’t the only person who thought this. Ms. Pane and I looked at each other and wondered if he was dog whistling covid conspiracy stuff. It was a weird moment.
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Yeah… I really don’t know what’s happening with this. It seems like a nothing-burger to me… There are far too many questions about what this actually means in the current geo-political environment.
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A lotta MAGAts in that state, which probably explains it.
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But the democrats appear to have done something about it, especially our Lieutenant Governor.
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Maybe time to put the old gray lady out of her…er, OUR… misery…
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Democrats in positions of power identified a racial disparity, set up a task force to resolve it, and successfully closed the gap?
As was mentioned in the article, that’s a good model for other states to follow. I’m sure the GOP/GQP reaction will include outrage, undermining the governor’s emergency powers, and attempts to make the gap wider than it ever was before.
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No doubt, since helping black people in any way can only ever mean one thing – hurting white people.
/bitter s
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Low confidence. Plausible. Not words to make decisions on.
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