Tuesday, May 11, 2021
The Safety of US COVID-19 Vaccines Revisited
After I finished my "The Safety of US COVID-19 Vaccines" post I learned that last week Tucker Carlson had done an episode on the same subject, including the use of VAERS data.
I don't typically agree with everything Carlson says and he is sometimes less careful than I think he should be. However, his segment on "How many Americans have died after taking the COVID vaccine?" is almost perfect. Don't trust me, watch it yourself.
What I want to focus on in this post is the outpouring of dishonest criticism from the rest of the mainstream media in the wake of Carlson's piece. In an all too typical example, rather than refute Carlson with relevant facts, National Review contributor Pradheep J. Shanker tweeted:
Tucker, being an idiot, took that number of deaths, and says they are related to the vaccine.
This, of course, is nonsense. But again, gullible people will believe these things, because the math and science isn’t exactly crystal clear.
In fact, Carlson simply and accurately reported what is in the VAERS data. Here's a representative passage:
... So the question is how do those numbers compare to the death rate from the coronavirus vaccines now being distributed across the country? That’s worth knowing.
We checked today. Here’s the answer, which comes from the same set of government numbers that we just listed: Between late December of 2020, and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccines in the United States. Three thousand, three hundred and sixty-two — that’s an average of 30 people every day. So, what does that add up to? By the way, that reporting period ended on April 23. We don’t have numbers past that, we’re not quite up to date. But we can assume that another 360 people have died in the 12 days since. That is a total of 3,722 deaths. Almost four thousand people died after getting the COVID vaccines. The actual number is almost certainly much higher than that — perhaps vastly higher.
The data we just cited come from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System — VAERS — which is managed by the CDC and the FDA. [VAERS] has received a lot of criticism over the years, some of it founded. Some critics have argued for a long time that [VAERS] undercounts vaccine injuries. A report submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 concluded that "fewer than one percent of vaccine adverse events are reported"* by the [VAERS] system. Fewer than one percent. So what is the real number of people who apparently have been killed or injured by the vaccine? Well, we don’t know that number. Nobody does, and we’re not going to speculate about it ...
The faux "fact checkers" at Politifact gave Carlson a rating of "false" on their "Truth-o-Meter". How did they justify their rating? Here a sample: "... VAERS data is considered unreliable for drawing causal conclusions. And dying after a vaccine is not the same thing as dying because of the vaccine."
I listened to the segment twice, Carlson did not draw a causal connection and never implied or claimed dying after a vaccine is the same thing as dying because of the vaccine. In short, Politifact's case against Carlson is a classic straw man argument—they thrash away at things Carlson didn't say.
Near the close of their article, Politifact says: "The CDC analyzed the VAERS death reports and concluded that there's no 'causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.' " I rate this claim mostly false. What the CDC actually says is: "A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines" (emphasis in original).
The CDC did NOT say "there's no 'causal link to COVID-19 vaccines' ", as Politifact claims. They said a causal link had not been established but they also did not rule out a causal link. It's also worth noting that the CDC provides no further information about who conducted their "review" or how it was conducted. There's no link to any documentation of the review.
* The report Carlson reference is from 2011, here's more context from it:
Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed.
Labels: COVID-19, government, health, media, medicine, science, technology, Tucker Carlson
Sunday, December 06, 2020
Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations III
Who said it?: "Even assuming there's nothing nefarious about the national election why has the cascade of irregularities around this country occurred virtually in a news blackout?"
If you guessed Tucker Carlson or some other right-wing crank then you are mistaken. It was MSNBC's Keith Olbermann talking with Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter days after the 2004 presidential election. Back then, Media Matters for America was complaining:
Media conservatives have labeled MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann a "voice of paranoia" and accused him of perpetuating "idiotic conspiracy theories" for his sustained spotlight on the numerous local news reports of voting irregularities during the November 2 presidential election. Olbermann's emphasis during Countdown with Keith Olbermann on voting irregularities has been part of a critique of what he has called the "Rube Goldberg voting process of ours" -- as well as a criticism of the major media outlets' failure to report on the irregularities.
So, in 2020, is Media Matters still complaining now that the shoe is on the other foot and the mainstream, pro-Democrat corporate media is engaged in a full court press to ignore, deny, and dismiss alleged irregularities in the 2020 presidential election and to denigrate anyone who makes or reports the allegations?
Why, yes, they are complaining ... about "Donald Trump's attempts to steal and thwart the election" and they are cataloging "right-wing media figures who have supported Trump's efforts to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about the election". In short, they have hypocritically done a complete about-face.
You see, it was not so long ago that some Democrats and other left-of-center folks took allegations of electoral irregularities and concern about voting machines very seriously or at least put on a good show of it. Election integrity activists produced an Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary, Hacking Democracy, and started groups such as VoteTrustUSA, VotersUnite, and Black Box Voting (all now moribund). Now that Biden has presumptively won the 2020 election such talk, from Democrats and their media lackeys, at least, is verboten.
Back in the day it was Diebold that lefties were mainly concerned about. Diebold, renamed as Premier Election Solutions, was sold to Dominion Voting Systems in 2010. That same year Dominion also bought assets of Sequoia Voting Systems.
In 2010, Project Censored published "Election 2008: Vanishing Votes, Disappearing Democracy And Media Misdirection" by Brad Friedman. Friedman, who is anti-Trump and now sees no evidence of voting irregularities wrote:
There was, of course, reason for everyone to be concerned, particularly about voting machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. The company had been on the verge of bankruptcy and hostile takeover all year, and—though they had told federal investigators that they had divested from Smartmatic, their Venezuelan-owned, Hugo Chavez-tied parent company, in late 2006, after a hue and cry from Republicans—all of their systems’ Intellectual Property rights had secretly remained under the ownership of the Venezuelan firm.The Venezuelan connection has, of course, recently been echoed by Sidney Powell along with allegations about Dominion. Though the Project Censored crowd seems uninterested in her allegations.
Also, in 2010, Project Censored published a revision of a 2006 piece by Dennis Loo titled: "No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election". Loo writes:
Welcome to a world where statistical probability and normal arithmetic no longer apply! The Democrats, rather than vigorously pursuing these patently obvious signs of election fraud in 2004, have nearly all decided that being gracious losers is better than being winners, probably because – and this may be the most important reason for the Democrats' relative silence – a full-scale uncovering of the fraud runs the risk of mobilizing and unleashing popular forces that the Democrats find just as threatening as the GOP does.
On November 8, I wrote: "I doubt that Trump's campaign will be able to muster evidence of election irregularities substantial enough to overturn the presumptive Biden victory. I am inclined to believe that he actually lost the election due to his unpopularity, not error or fraud." I still believe that but more strongly than ever I also believe there probably were significant election irregularities.
It seems the reason we are told over and over again that Biden is the "president-elect" and allegations of election problems are "baseless" is precisely because the mainstream strongly suspects or knows the allegations are not baseless at all. I also believe that the undisciplined and incompetent Team Trump is likely not up to the task of getting to the truth and, in any case, they have Democrats, the media, establishment Republicans, and the Deep State working against them.
See also:
- Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations II
- Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations IV
Labels: Biden, Democrats, media, politics, Republicans, Trump, Tucker Carlson, voting
Wednesday, November 04, 2020
Lessons of the 2020 Election
Donald J. Trump has endured more than four years of constant public drubbing by most of the mainstream media, academia, and the entertainment industry. Trump survived the bogus Russiagate conspiracy and a failed impeachment related to Biden family dealings in Ukraine. A significant number of establishment Republicans betrayed their party to publicly campaign for Biden. Biden has collected far more campaign money ($1,380.1 million vs. $863.6 million) than Trump.
In many ways Trump's presidency has been an incoherent mess marked by numerous self-inflicted wounds, including but not limited to, bad policies and inept policy implementation. Yet, despite all this and during the worst pandemic in 100 years and the worst economy in 90 years, Trump once again defied the pollsters and pundits to mount a strong challenge to the presidential nominee of Democratic Party. It looks like Republicans will hold the Senate and cut the Democratic majority in the House to single digits. Meanwhile, in solid blue California voters soundly rejected an attempt by political elites to remove an anti-discrimination clause from the state constitution.
This all begs the question: Will Democratic (or Republican) elites learn the right lessons from the 2016 and 2020 elections and resolve to work "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty"? Nah.
See also:
- Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations I
- "Tucker Carlson: A Vote for President Trump Is a Vote Against America's Ruling Class" by Joey Pietro for The Western Journal
- "Ketman And The Left's Problem" by Rod Dreher for The American Conservative
Labels: Biden, COVID-19, media, politics, race, Russia, Trump, Tucker Carlson, voting
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Proud Boys & Shameful Media
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| Whoopi Goldberg poses with members of the Proud Boys in Florida in 2019. |
After the sh*tshow that was last night's presidential "debate" the mainstream media's major talking point is the allegation that Trump refused to "condemn white supremacists". Never mind that, beginning no later than August 2017, Trump has repeatedly "condemned white supremacists". Never mind, too, that White supremacism is virtually a non-issue in modern America.
In any case, the media frenetically seized on Trump's failure to condemn a group fingered by Biden—the Proud Boys. Earlier today, I ran a search on "proud boys" + "hate group". Every news hit on the first page of results claimed, assumed, or implied that the Proud Boys is a violent "hate", "white nationalist", and/or "white supremacist" group, mostly on the strength of allegations by the disreputable ADL or SPLC. In typical fashion, spineless Republicans and Fox News piled on.
Here's the strange thing, as even some of its detractors acknowledge, the Proud Boys is a multi-racial group. Here's what one critic wrote earlier today:
Indeed the group has a membership that includes those of Black, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. This fact would be the core argument against the Proud Boys being termed a "white nationalist" group, which goes along with its also-problematic rebranding to center on the coded language of "Western values."
"Proud Boys is a multi-racial fraternity with thousands of members worldwide," a lawyer for McInnis asserted in 2018. "The only requirements for membership are that a person must be biologically male and believe that the West is the best."
So, how is a Progressive goodthinker supposed to reconcile the Proud Boys' racial/ethnic diversity (good) with White people/hate (bad)? Injunction 1: Who said you were allowed to think? Your betters have told you what to believe, just accept that the Proud Boys are a hate group and leave it at that. Injunction 2: If you disobey Injunction 1, realize that their refusal to accept (White) racial guilt proves their crime. It goes like this:
However, the group's [i.e. the Proud Boys'] website includes a list of core values [see also here] as tenets: "Minimal Government, Maximum Freedom, Anti Political Correctness, Anti-Drug War, Closed Borders, Anti-Racial Guilt, Anti-Racism, Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment), Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment), Glorifying the Entrepreneur, Venerating the Housewife, Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism."
The impossible notion of couching "anti-racism" together with "anti-racial guilt" is informative, in the implicit suggestion that Proud Boys do not hate non-whites as long as they (whites) aren't guilted into taking ownership of their privilege or past sins of racialized violence. In other words, per their ideology, "others" can join as long as they fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority.
In fact, all ethical and thinking people reject both racism and racial guilt. Moreover, the Proud Boys nowhere, that I have seen, claim or imply that non-White members are "others" who must "fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority."
In one of the rare, more balanced accounts USA Today reported:
Current Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is Afro-Cuban, says the group has "longstanding regulations prohibiting racist, white supremacist or violent activity," Ronald D. Coleman wrote in an email to USA TODAY. Coleman said he is a spokesman for the Proud Boys.
"We do not care what color you are or what your background is ... if you love America ... we consider you a brother," Tarrio said in a written statement provided by Coleman. The group condemns racism, fascism, communism and socialism, the statement says.
As for the allegations of violence. I have little doubt that some of the Proud Boys and/or its associates have instigated violence and they should be arrested and tried for it. However, I have watched a lot of video of the violent encounters and they, overwhelmingly, seem to be defensive on the part of the Proud Boys.
One recent example occurred this summer in Kalamazoo. The USA Today report quoted above said simply: "When the Proud Boys met with counterprotesters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in August, the tensions boiled over into fights requiring law enforcement to step in." The reporter did not see fit to tell his readers that Kalamazoo police determined, and provided video showing, that "counterprotesters" initiated the violence (see also here).
In a largely ignored statement issued before Kalamazoo police had their press conference the Michigan chapter of the Proud Boys said, in part:
For those in Kalamazoo city government who claim to reject our values of hate – we merely ask who do we hate? African American Proud Boys, Asian Proud Boys, Jewish Proud Boys, Arab Proud Boys, Hispanic Proud Boys were all represented as photo and video documentation of our protest prove. We hate no one, but we do pity those that must resort to violence when confronted ... by those who vote for a different political party than they do, and support the current President of the United States.
All this is not to say the Proud Boys are angelic beings who can think or do no wrong but all the evidence of which I am aware indicates that the mainstream media has generally shamefully misrepresented them for transparently political purposes.
Labels: Biden, critical thinking, media, politics, race, Trump, Tucker Carlson, video, White folks
