I cast “Psaki’s Word of Takedown”. No save.
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I think that it is about leveraging Fox viewers’ distrust of international institutions to imply that the Biden administration is insufficiently American.
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My understanding is that some of the gene sequences were discovered several years ago in viruses in bats in a different region of China. And that particular variant was studied at the lab.
Seconded!
I’m starting to think Doocy likes getting spanked by Psaki. Like, it turns him on or something.
Either that or he’s a socialist… cuz he enjoys getting publicly owned, amirite? wocka-wocka…
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This is the circular argument you get into when trying to disprove a negative. If the Chinese know what it is, then Aha! they recognise it came from a lab. If they don’t recognise it then Aha! it is a new strain only seen in the lab. I can see why the Chinese might study coronavirus strains, but I don’t see any motive in trying to get it to cross species in a lab. If it didn’t cross species in the lab, then it is the same strain as the local bats have (or Bats’R’Us or wherever they get them from). Not much of an argument, I know, but the lab explanation doesn’t make any sense to me.
On the other hand if you say ‘well, there might be something in it’, you are now one of the ‘many people’ that Peter Doocy is citing as evidence.
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“Tuned in and turned on” to “fun” “bombs.”
So I guess we’re just back to politics as entertainment. It’s nice when you’re in a position where nothing really impacts your life all that much, and you can treat it like being a spectator at a fun game. You can root for your team! Eh just it’s body count. The question, the issue, or even the response doesn’t matter nearly as much as the cleverness of the retort.
An analysis or breakdown - even a short or flippant one for a blog post - of how the executive press secretary does their job, the effectiveness of blunting rightist propaganda, is a valid thing to cover. Perhaps not nearly so catchy or clicky if we don’t treat it like a fan club. But it’s hard to see how this approach to covering our government improves the discourse.
These right conspiracy outlets are far more harmful, and they’re truly idiots, and I even think Psaki’s approach is a generally effective one.
But should we ever really think of the government in power, any government in power, as “our team” to cheer on so lavishly?
I think that Duecey actually believes he is making compelling points and winning arguments. His friends Dunning and Krueger agree.
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Maybe not cross species for shits and giggles, but to understand the mechanisms that alow it to cross species, there’s loads of value to science, medicine, public health, and probably other fields. That was actually a signficant part of what my Dad studied for well over 40 years.
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I would even buy one of those silly, “That was easy” type buttons, but updated with Psaki quotes. Anytime anyone said something ridiculous, I’d just hit the button and smile.
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Probably best for you to think about it in terms of a “fan club” for truth rather than for Psaki herself.
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which “we” is this, exactly
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Excellent question;
Personally I despise it when complete strangers deign to speak on my behalf, or use language that implies that their opinion is more than just that; an opinion.
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“We” as in United States citizens, “we the people,” of which I suppose I’m asking a subset that finds this kind of “politics-as-game” to perhaps give pause and think about how it may or may not further the discourse or even their own goals. (Of which I probably have lots of common ground.)
100%. However, do you think it’s the job of ANY White House Press Secretary to be telling “the truth?”
Yes. Yes I do. In that under the right leadership we don’t hear lies, garbage and propaganda from the likes of traitors, bigots, racists and grifters like these sorry excuses for humans:
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The Drumpf presidency and resulting press secretaries were extremely, uniquely bad. And damaging. It’s very important to keep that in mind.
But we allow the damage to keep damaging us if we compare the future to them. If their malicious incompetency becomes our baseline.
Does Nature count? (Of course, that doesn’t mean that this virus was a g-o-f experiment, or that the conspiracy theories are true. I don’t see any reason why we have to accept the right-wing premise that acknowledging that this kind of experimentation might have been going on is tantamount to supporting the Trumpian conspiracy delusions.)
That article says that the gain of function research was conducted at the University of North Carolina.
You’re right in the sense that it only says that the person who runs the lab had done gof experiments in a different lab.
I got there indirectly from this article in the MIT Technology Review, which does say:
Experiments to engineer pathogens were also ongoing at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China’s leading center for studying bat viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.
They don’t give any primary references on that, and it is possible that it is based on statements by Ralph Baric.
