Selectively cherry-picking ‘The Science’ to suit a political narrative is not ‘Following the Science.’ It is malpractice and fraud.

According to a recent headline from The New York Times, “the CDC isn’t publishing large portions of the COVID data it collects.” That headline downplays what the article in fact reveals:

Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said. //

The article says when the Centers for Disease Control “published the first significant data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65…it left out the numbers for a huge portion of that population: 18- to 49-year-olds, the group least likely to benefit from extra shots.”

“The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public,” according to the Times, “because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.” //

Every time these federal employees uttered the phrase “follow the science,” they actually meant, “Do what we say and don’t question it, or we’ll punish you.” True scientists don’t release partial data or hide their data. Yet after severe damage is done to government credibility and the country’s social fabric, now even The New York Times can’t deny that the CDC hid the truth about booster efficacy from Americans because it would contradict this administration’s political goals.

tobybrut Giab
2 months ago edited
The situation there is a lot more complicated than just an invasion by Russia. There are eastern Ukraine provinces that WANT to be a part of Russia. Europe helped to negotiate the Minsk Protocols between Ukraine and Russia, which essentially gives those provinces autonomy. The Minsk Protocols did not stop the civil war going on in that area, unfortunately. It is not just a case of Russian aggression here. They see it as a defensive move to protect Russians in eastern Ukraine and as defense against yet another NATO front. War is not desired, of course, but the West lead by Brandon has been rather feckless in finding a solution that doesn't involve a Russian invasion.

NATO is another piece of that Ukraine puzzle, and this is where all of our presidents have failed going directly back to Bill Clinton, who treated the newly liberated Russia as a conquered foe rather than trying to get Russia to become a friend or ally. Russia has far more in common with the West than it does with Communist China, yet persistently, Russia has been pushed into the arms of the Chicoms. Yes, Russia has a large nuclear force, but not so much anything else. It has a tiny economy and a far weaker military (except nuclear) that poses no real threat. Russia watched as its former Soviet republics turned into NATO members and feels like it is under siege. They do not want Ukraine brought into NATO creating yet another front that could threaten it. What Clinton and his successors should have done was to concentrate on Russia itself to bring it into NATO or at least to become a friendly nation. Ukraine and its eastern provinces would be a regional problem now instead of a global problem. Is it too late? I don't know, but there's enough bad blood between Putin and Western leaders that there may be no resolution, but this was a failure that goes back three decades. Brandon just makes it worse because he is essentially an empty suit.

NATO is outdated and needs to be repurposed to defending against the real enemy, the Chicoms, and to de-emphasize Russia as its primary opponent.

In the years before Moscow invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals. //

Our best-selling book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties" chronicled how a failed "reset" in U.S.-Russia relations led by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton relied on an appeasement strategy that ultimately backfired with Russia.

Putin's spoils were measured in billions of dollars in uranium contracts with U.S. utilities, expanded oil imports and transfers of sensitive technologies.

The American dynasties counted their victories in millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation, speech fees to Bill Clinton, and lucrative board seats and consulting deals for Hunter Biden. //

By 2013, Putin had taken Americans to the cleaners. He got massive energy supplies that he now uses as a strategic weapon; he got toothless disarmament treaties that history suggests he will not abide by; he compromised American utility companies, getting them hooked on his cheap nuclear fuel supplies; he got his spies freed and sent home to a hero's welcome in Moscow; he got advanced cyber and military technology; and, not least, he compromised key figures in America's political class.

What did Americans get in return? Not much. Here's a simple test: Has your utility bill gotten cheaper since 2009? //

But Obama, Clinton, and Biden got a lot. As just one example, before Obama even left office in 2017, he set up the Obama Foundation. One of his very first donors was Exelon Corporation, which had received billions in cheap Russian nuclear fuel sales thanks to the 123 Agreement. Exelon, which was known as "the President's Utility" pledged a staggering $10 million to Obama's foundation before he was even out of office.

Biden's family and its partners got hooked up with the former mayor of Moscow's family, who sent at least $3.5 million to a company cofounded by Hunter Biden. Thanks to the Hunter Biden laptop, we know that the Russian oligarch behind that $3.5 million may have invested upwards of $200 million in other Biden-linked entities and that Joe Biden personally benefited from his son's business dealings. And this is all before Biden was named Obama's point man in Ukraine.

Corey Robin is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center and he’s not happy. You see, Robin thinks democracy in America is being stifled and held back and he’s none too pleased about it.

“Driving the initiatives of the Republicans and the inertia of the Democrats are two forces. The first is the right’s project, decades in the making, to legally limit the scope and reach of democracy. The second is the Constitution, which makes it difficult for the national majority to act and easy for local minorities to rule,” Robin wrote in a guest spot in Politico.

He continues by referring to the Republican Party as a threat to the nation with the Constitution as his accomplice. //

My response?

Good.

I feel like in this day and age the word “democracy” gets thrown around quite a bit. So much so, in fact, that few people actually know what it means. More accurately, they know what it means but they don’t know what it entails.

Let me give you a solid example of what happens in a “democracy.”

In the year 1692, mass hysteria had gripped a Massachusetts village where people had begun accusing one another of something they couldn’t necessarily disprove; being a witch. Men, women, and even children were accused of witchcraft and subsequently locked up, tortured, and even killed as a result of the village’s zealous wish to eliminate anyone who practiced the dark art. //

Many people look at the Salem Witch Trials as religious zealotry run amok, but it’s hardly that. What this really is is a perfect example of Democracy.

Democracy is, purely and simply, majority rule. If a mass of people wants something then that thing is what happens. This may sound like a great way to conduct a society, but as you can see from the Salem Witch Trials, it’s not. The simple fact is that people can be led to believe many ridiculous things and if enough people believe something ridiculous they can craft society by it. //

Standing in the way of this kind of mob-driven terror is the document that Robin seems to dislike so much. The constitution is the document that keeps things fairer to the people than any other in the history of the world.

It’s important to remember that America is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. We have a system of laws that protects the little guy from the tyranny of the majority. It allows for anyone of any stripe to speak freely, to not have their home raided because people think it should be, and it also allows them to defend themselves with the best means necessary. There will be no Salem Witch Trials under the American constitution, though many have tried throughout America’s existence.

Our constitution is a shield from the tyranny of the majority, and whether people like Robin understand it or not, it staying in place is the best thing for each individual in our nation. If it goes, you can expect accusations of whatever they call “witchcraft” to come with some very heavy consequences, and consequences that the vast majority of those accused won’t deserve.

I think it’s vital for the US and NATO to make the message very clear that the liberal democracies of the West do not wish the Russian Federation or the Russian culture to perish. It’s important to get the message to ordinary Russians that the West knows that even if Mr. Putin’s reign ends, Russia will go on.

We want Russia to get back on the path to flourishing as a member of the international community. We need to make it clear that the West does not believe in the isolated spheres of influence that Mr. Putin wants to carve the world into, not because we are the agents of an evil hegemony, but because we do not want Russia to become a hermit kingdom with its people returning to the levels of poverty that happened when the Soviet Union catastrophically collapsed.

I think it’s also important to get the message to Russians that, given the damage Mr. Putin has inflicted on his own nation militarily and economically, realistically, his country will only get back to where it should be if Mr. Putin passes the baton to someone new.

What Vladimir Putin has proven to the world is that he is an irresponsible caretaker of a nuclear arsenal.

He abused his possession of nuclear weapons threatening NATO and the United States, who are also nuclear powers, to bluff the West into meekly standing by while he invaded Ukraine. This is not the mark of a thoughtful leader. //

We should be making it clear that we want the sanctions to end and the world to mend this terrible rift. But we should also make it clear that the longer Mr. Putin continues his course of destruction, the more difficult it will be for the world to undo the adaptations it is now making to bypass his country. //

But Mr. Putin’s problems won’t end when he tells his troops to cease fire in Ukraine. He will then have to negotiate with what he calls the “Empire of Lies” to lift sanctions.

And I think the price the West should demand is that he needs to dismantle his tactical nuclear arsenal. The west should demand three things.

First, Russia must pledge to abandon the ridiculous doctrine of “escalate to de-escalate” that contemplates the first use of a tactical nuclear weapon as an instrument of terror. //

Second, Russia should unilaterally adopt a parity of warheads policy for its tactical nuclear arsenal in order to get sanctions lifted. They should reduce the number of tactical nuclear weapons in the European theater to levels that are at parity with the tactical warheads the US and NATO have in the same region. //

Third, Russia should agree to let the West develop and deploy a shield system that can both intercept and attack ballistic, cruise, hypersonic missile threats as well as aircraft and artillery delivered tactical nuclear weapons.

The US and NATO should proceed to work on this system while economic sanctions are in place. Russia has already proven it abuses the nuclear card. As Mr. Putin put it, “That line has been crossed.” //

We should also announce that the US and NATO intend to share this defense shield technology with countries around the world. Our objective is to make it too risky for any aggressor to believe that their attack could succeed unchallenged.

One last note: The US has neglected its tactical nuclear arsenal for too long. To put it bluntly, the hole we created in our arsenal created a window of power projection vulnerability someone like Mr. Putin would be tempted to exploit.

The output of a jet engine declines, broadly speaking, in proportion to the density of the air in which it operates. You can’t turbocharge a jet engine because the engine itself is fundamentally a self-propelled turbocharger. On the other hand, at high speeds, a jet profits from ram effect, which its compressor compounds, while lower ambient density reduces resistance to the outflow from the exhaust nozzle. Jets therefore operate more efficiently—that is, require less fuel per unit of thrust—at high speed and altitude than they do when flying low and slow. //

The situation of the propeller is different. The engine driving the propeller can be turbocharged and may maintain sea-level power up to a high altitude. But as the density of the air diminishes, the propeller blades have less to work with. Once they are at their optimal angle of attack, the only way to maintain thrust against increasingly rarefied air is to increase the area, number or speed of the propeller blades.

At the same time, as the airplane takes advantage of thinner air by increasing its true airspeed—which is the main reason for wanting to fly high in the first place—the pitch angle of the propeller blades, governed by both their own rotational velocity and the forward speed of the airplane, must increase. As blade pitch increases, the lift vector of each blade points farther and farther away from the thrust axis. This difficulty might be alleviated if it were actually possible to spin the propeller faster, but in fact, the faster the airplane goes, the slower the propeller must turn to keep its tip speeds away from the transonic drag rise. The efficiency of a given propeller therefore decreases as speed and altitude increase.