ewsieg

To be honest, I didn't even think there were legitimate voices saying that Xi demanded the release of this virus on his people knowing it would eventually target the US. Even early on when it was tough to even say 'lab leak' without looking like a tin hat, everything I saw was in regards to someone in the lab getting it on accident and spreading it unknowingly. But to some, if it's important to lay the blame on Trump before they will go the route of accepting even the option that this was lab leak, I may not understand that, but go for it. To me the origin was important if it was out of the lab. And honestly at this point, confirming that doesn't matter as long as all people realize it definitely could have come from the lab. The reason I believe it's important can be summed up by re-reading your first paragraph from the post I responded to. Better administration is needed to either ensure it doesn't happen again or even if it didn't happen this way, to help ensure it won't in the future either.

I'm not following. Are you saying you believe any talk of lab leak is conspiracy still or that if we go the route that it was a lab leak in China, that it was due to Trump's incompetence?

I'll give you that, but I don't think it's as confusing as you make it out to be. If everyone on this site nitpicked a sentence like this this forum would be nothing but Biden bashing. He never said no one else was affected, but his job is to protect Americans, so I'm not going to scrutinize his statement here to have a deeper meaning when he should be focused on exactly what he's saying here.

I feel like you guys are making the jump that if it was a 'bioweapon' and not just scientific research than that also means it was purposely released as well and I don't see Wray saying that. And to point out again, bioweapon vs gain of function for good purposes can be defined in the eye of the beholder. In fact the scientists at the lab performing the work may be doing it for all the right reasons (assuming this was the case here) and China military/national security may simply be tracking for their own purposes. I would hope our own national security organizations have their ears to the ground for any new technology, medical or not, that could be used with malintent.

I guess my question is what did he do wrong? Gain of function medical research and bioweapons research can be identical in procedure with the only difference being the intent of use. I would expect the FBI to be focused on the bioweapons angle. Maybe it's not so much that he made something sound scary, but that the topic itself is scary and he just accurately described it.

Part of this is old news, FBI came out last year saying it was lab leak with medium confidence. No one covered it until the Dept of Energy report just came out. I see nothing wrong with the Bray/Fox portion of this tweet, but this Josh Marshall guy is not paraphrasing what he said correctly. Bray did not say China did this as a bioweapon, but pointed out it's a concern. A legitimate journalist should see and report that difference as it's quite important.

Sounds like it. If I remember correctly, it's something like the 10 worst teams have a shot at #1 and #2, team 11 has a shot at #2 and 3, 12 has 3 and 4, etc. So let's say they finish 12th last in the standings, but end up winning the draft lotto and getting pick 3 or 4, those are probably protected.

I'm not necessarily arguing it. I can't remember what podcast where they talked about Licht and directives he was given. In short, Warner Bros thinks CNN is still a crown jewel for it's overall product and worth more to Warner Bros as a trusted news source than the profit CNN may be able to get if they did anything possible to get ratings. Overall they see cable news, just like many other cable stations, dying as cord cutting is happening. So instead of further sacrificing their perception in the eyes of middle America, take the hit now, cut costs and focus on the news. Additionally they stated that CNN is still the leader in major breaking news and that even a decent number of regular Fox users switch to CNN if there is a major event and they want to expand on that. I'm not arguing that Warner Bros is saying they can lose money or not try to be profitable, just sounds like they view the CNN channel differently than Fox Corp views Fox News channel.

From a money standpoint, I'm guessing other golden gooses would be happy to step up. But you're right, the NFL itself wouldn't do it, but pressure from the players union would spur media pressure, etc. Take a look at CNN. They were no where near the gutter that Fox News has been playing in, yet Warner/Discovery was still willing to give up money in order to attempt to reshape it to something that may not be as profitable, but better prestige for the parent company as a hole. If Fox news became a liability for the parent company, that might finally create the change needed.

I'm not a huge fan of cancel culture, but this is a prime example of where it can be useful. Lets say something like the NFL filing paperwork to void their contract with Fox over this would be the wake up call needed for Fox Corp to do something.

I see zero wrong with this statement, fwiw.

To clarify, I absolutely agree with you. My post was to jokingly point out that as I likely suspect the right has at minimum, some of the blame, I figured I'd spin the response to focus on the people and call out anyone that might want to place blame as not caring about the people affected.

My internal thought is deregulation helped cause this accident, or at the very least, made this type of situation more likely to occur. Additionally the right is the one that tends to push deregulation even though when it comes to railroads, they pretty much own both sides, thus why the Biden Admin / Buttigieg couldn't even get some sick days for employees because they are 'too important' to the economy for such silly things. That holds true for this little incident, hopefully media will move away as to ensure no one overreacts and puts undue pressure on an industry so vital to the economy. Externally, as someone that leans right on fiscal issues and doesn't want the right to be blamed because they are my team I'll put out this statement. "It's inconceivable to me that anyone would be looking to place blame when the real issue are the people of East Palestine. Instead we need to be focused to assist in this nightmare scenario they are living through and give them all the support they need. There will be a time to address other concerns, but now is not that time. Let's come together and support our brothers and sisters in East Palestine."

It doesn't mean we don't have facts that aren't public, which could be the reason why these internal investigations are starting to lean towards lab leak. In the end, you're likely right that ultimately no one will ever truly know, at least anytime soon. Might be a generation or two later that are the first ones to get a lot of the facts.

Read the article, he's the major proponent of 'we need to say natural origin' and the only evidence he has is 'it's impossible to say it couldn't be natural' but goes on to say why it's important to say it's natural. I thought scientists don't give opinions and only speak to fact? He's not doing that here, he's arguing that if people think it's lab leak, which it might be, some people may than jump to it was engineered and released. As a scientist, that's not his role, it's to look at what he can obtain as fact and interpret it as best he can, all the while acknowledging that more facts may come in to change that. Doing that would have potentially put a lot of pressure on his field that he absolutely doesn't want though. So does that come into play why they pushed natural origin?

Dude, you're joking right? The emails from many of those independent academics specifically talk about the importance to push natural origin. from above:

This is exactly my point. They got exactly what they wanted by manipulating the media. As I provided above, that Lancet article was put out to push this as a natural origin even as most involved seemed to think the Lab leak theory was viable and even a few thinking it was likely. For those that are now saying 'show me where Fauci said the lab leak theory was not an option', you damn well know how he spoke and what was pushed to the media. If you said lab leak, you were the reason why St. Patty's day isn't celebrated in China.

@Hongbit, when people said 'lab leak' to you, did you think that was the conspiracy theory, or did you believe it absolutely could have come out of the lab, but the conspiracy portion was that Fauci and China were taking down China?

The call occurred on 2/1, then the follow up. https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-emails/ Soon after, we see the pushback https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-strongly-condemn-rumors-and-conspiracy-theories-about-origin-coronavirus

How can you explain how a majority of people, that coincidently lean left, somehow felt the lab leak was a conspiracy theory for so long. As I mentioned, Fauci was very careful of how he worded it and I'm confident he was happy with how the media took it. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd Notice his alternate theory, how specific he is which allows him to say he doesn't entertain it. You're the one that talked about who has the motive, yet you don't see the motive that both Daszek and Fauci had in not having everyone come down on them (NIH and Ecohealth). My guess is because at the time, Fauci, who I truly believe has committed his life to improve the science in these subjects, wanted to focus on keeping our nation and the world as prepared as possible in dealing with something that couldn't be taken back. I don't think he's an evil man, I don't think he did anything illegal, I do think he legally circumvented rules put in place by the Obama administration and just like the FBI, Dept of Energy and now 4 different US Intelligence agencies, I think the evidence points to a lab leak. Also, at one point the argument was that China is stonewalling and we'll never know. Do you think China stopped stonewalling? Or is it possible that Fauci knew some of the same information that flipped the thoughts on these US agencies when they saw it too?

Fauci had no problem selling the natural origins story days after knowing scientists had pointed out, what they thought at the time, was a likely lab origin. The similar finds in nature took awhile to come out, not days. I will admit things could have changed, but there is no public information that gives a reason why Fauci sits on a conference call where scientist identify how it makes sense it was of lab origin in Wuhan and then day's later he's pointing to The Lancet article which admonishes 'conspiracy theorists'. And if you want to take Fauci on his current word, he claims he was always open to both natural and lab origins, but again, that's not what he was saying publicly early on and for quite a while after. If that can be shown, that would be a good thing. But if the experts convince everyone not to look there, maybe it's never shown. I guess we can hope if it was lab leak, internally they decide to do something different in the future. There certainly is an argument I'd be willing to accept where our virus research experts would work to correct that better than government oversight could do.

There is apparently enough evidence to lean towards likely, where just until recently all the top experts either said everything pointed to natural or simply avoided the question. Did Fauci actually say it was absurd to think the lab leak was an option...no, he was very careful in how he said stuff. But up until recently he would blow off the question, discuss how natural transmission happens, or 'own' Rand Paul instead of giving us his honest opinion, which again, we know now based on his initial emails that his first thought was lab leak, which counters everything he pushed towards the media.

Sometimes a story just stinks, think Jussie Smollet. One of the few labs that specialize in Covid research AND has access to bats in a region 1000 miles away where we believe this originated from is where this pandemic starts. But quickly folks with motives (research community) claims it must be the wet market, which even at the time it was not believed they sold bats or pangolin (and later confirmed). Doesn't mean it didn't jump via another animal, but again that means it jumped naturally along this 1000 mile path and just happened to start in Wuhan. None of that is proof alone, but just like Jon Stewart pointed out on Colbert, it's those things that make you go 'hmm'. And again to focus on motives, emails show Fauci and other colleagues initially thought it could be a lab leak, but framed the storyline that it was absurd to think anything but natural. I know you think I both sides everything, but seems to me there were some motives there too.

I contend you're either trying to continue the mockery as you refuse to believe you may have been wrong this entire time or you simply don't understand what believing something with low confidence means. They could have come out and said they don't know, they could have said low/medium/high confidence that it was natural. They claim they have intelligence which pushed them towards declaring it was likely a lab leak. Rather there is some other counter evidence they don't believe strongly enough but warrants not claiming medium/high or simply don't have enough evidence, again, they are leaning towards lab leak. Not long ago merely suggesting this put you on the same level as people that believed in Jewish space lasers. To note folks, you can still believe the Orange man is very bad AND that this virus came out of a lab that just happens to investigate/research the exact thing we're dealing with.