New Harvard Data [Accidentally] Reveal How Lockdowns Crushed the Working Class While Leaving Elites Unscathed

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Founding father and the second president of the United States John Adams once said that “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” What he meant was that objective, raw numbers don’t lie—and this remains true hundreds of years later.

We just got yet another example. A new data analysis from Harvard University, Brown University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation crunches the numbers on how different levels of employment have been impacted during the pandemic to date. The findings reveal that government lockdown orders devastated workers at the bottom of the financial food chain but left the upper tier actually better off.

The analysis examined employment levels in January 2020, before the coronavirus spread widely and before lockdown orders and other restrictions on the economy were implemented. It compared them to employment figures from March 31, 2021.

The picture painted by this comparison is one of working class destruction.

Employment for lower-wage workers, defined as earning less than $27,000 annually, declined by a whopping 23.6 percent over the time period. Employment for middle-wage workers, defined as earning from $27,000 to $60,000, declined by a modest 4.5 percent. However, employment for high-wage workers, defined as earning more than $60,000, actually increased 2.4 percent over the measured time period despite the country’s economic turmoil.

The data are damning. They offer yet another reminder that government lockdowns hurt most those who could least afford it.

Some critics argue that the pandemic, not government lockdowns, are the true source of this economic duress. While there’s no doubt the virus itself played some role, government lockdowns were undoubtedly the single biggest factor. It’s pretty intuitive that ordering people not to patronize businesses and criminalizing peoples’ livelihoods would hurt the economy. This intuition is confirmed by data and studies showing as much. And don’t forget the fact that heavy lockdown states have consistently had much higher unemployment rates than states that took a more laissez-faire approach.

Others might insist that the mitigation of the spread of COVID-19 accomplished by lockdowns justifies this economic fallout. But this argument fails to account for the many peer-reviewed studies showing lockdown orders did not effectively slow the pandemic’s spread, or the painfully inconvenient fact that most COVID-19 spread occurred not in workplaces, restaurants, or gyms but at home. (Making “stay-at-home orders” seem like an astonishing mistake in hindsight.)

So, all lockdowns really seem to have accomplished is at best a mild delay in the pandemic’s trajectory in exchange for a host of lethal unintended consequences such as a mental health crisis and skyrocketing drug overdoses. And, as we now know, a highly regressive economic fallout for the working class.

Of course, Ivy League researchers almost certainly did not intend to expose the failings of big government pandemic policies when they set out to catalogue employment data. But, as Adams said, facts are stubborn things.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Scientist Backing Probe Into Wuhan Lab: We Waited Because We Didn’t Want ‘To Be Associated With Trump’

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Scumbag. Politicized science isn’t science at all – it’s dangerous, criminal treachery. The left has destroyed the public trust in science. Never again will we trust them.

Democrats lied, people died.

Scientist Backing Probe Into Wuhan Lab: We Waited Because We Didn’t Want ‘To Be Associated With Trump’

By Ryan Saavedra • Daily Wire • Jun 17, 2021 •

A scientist that signed onto a letter recently backing a probe in the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology admitted in an interview this week that she and other scientists did not come forward sooner to back the possibility that the pandemic originated in a lab because they did not want “to be associated with Trump.”

NBC News reports:

Chan was one of 18 scientists who published a letter in the journal Science last month calling for a more in-depth investigation into the virus’s origin that takes into account theories about both natural occurrence and laboratory spillovers. The letter helped kick-start a new round of calls to investigate the “lab leak hypothesis,” including demands from President Joe Biden and several leading scientists.

The report noted that numerous experts in the field have said that little-to-no evidence has emerged over the last year or so and that the only thing that has changed is the “context and circumstances” around the debate of the pandemic’s origins.

The report continued:

Chan said there had been trepidation among some scientists about publicly discussing the lab leak hypothesis for fear that their words could be misconstrued or used to support racist rhetoric about how the coronavirus emerged. Trump fueled accusations that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab in the city where the first Covid-19 cases were reported, was connected to the outbreak…

“At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn’t want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins,” Chan claimed in the interview.

Scientists rushed to downplay the possibility that the pandemic could have originated in the lab by publishing a letter in The Lancet that cast it “as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism,” Vanity Fair reported. “The Lancet statement effectively ended the debate over COVID-19’s origins before it began.”

“To Gilles Demaneuf, following along from the sidelines, it was as if it had been ‘nailed to the church doors,’ establishing the natural origin theory as orthodoxy,” the report added. “‘Everyone had to follow it. Everyone was intimidated. That set the tone.’”

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield said this week that he believes that the pandemic originated in the lab and that those who moved to shut down the lab leak theory were “very anti-science.”

David Asher, who led the Trump administration’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, said in an interview last month that he had biostatisticians from the U.S. government calculate that the odds of the coronavirus evolving from nature and they estimated that it was about 1-in-13 billion.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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A Group Of Florida Parents Sent Their Kids’ Face Masks to A Lab for Analysis. Here Are All The Diseases They Found.

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The Democrats are killing our children.

The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

  • Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)
  • Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)
  • Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)
  • Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)
  • Escherichia coli (food poisoning)
  • Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)
  • Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)
  • Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)
  • Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)
  • Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

A Group Of Parents Sent Their Kids’ Face Masks to A Lab for Analysis. Here’s What They Found

By: Scott Morefield, Townhall, Jun 15, 2021:

We’ve been told for well over a year that widespread forced public masking should be implemented because, even if only moderately to slightly to negligibly effective at curbing the spread of COVID-19, there are ZERO drawbacks.

“What’s the harm?” they ask.

“It’s only a minor inconvenience,” they bleat.

“If it saves ONE LIFE, it’s worth it!” they implore.

Meanwhile, we on Team Reality have not only continued to point to real-world data that shows masking to be entirely ineffective, we’ve also maintained that forced public masking, especially long-term, has negative societal and even health ramifications that the powers-that-be are all-too-happy to ignore in subservience to their newfound face mask god.

It only stands to reason that one of those health ramifications would be the fact that millions of people, particularly children, have been forced to wear and carry around pieces of cloth they’ve continually breathed through for hours on end. What lurking pathogens might be found on these disgusting contraptions being incessantly handled, stuck in pockets, and mindlessly tossed on books, tables, and desks? Well, one group of Florida parents sent a batch of masks worn by their children to a lab to find out. And yeah, you’ll probably need to make sure you aren’t eating dinner anytime soon before you digest THESE results.

Via press release:

Gainesville, FL (June 16, 2021) – A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, concerned about potential harms from masks, submitted six face masks to a lab for analysis. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks, although the test is capable of detecting viruses.

The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

• Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)

• Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)

• Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)

• Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)

• Escherichia coli (food poisoning)

• Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)

• Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)

• Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)

• Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)

• Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling by children aged 6 through 11. One was worn by an adult. A t-shirt worn by one of the children at school and unworn masks were tested as controls. No pathogens were found on the controls. Proteins found on the t-shirt, for example, are not pathogenic to humans and are commonly found in hair, skin, and soil.

A parent who participated in the study, Ms. Amanda Donoho, commented that this small sample points to a need for more research: “We need to know what we are putting on the faces of our children each day. Masks provide a warm, moist environment for bacteria to grow.”

These local parents contracted with the lab because they were concerned about the potential of contaminants on masks that their children were forced to wear all day at school, taking them on and off, setting them on various surfaces, wearing them in the bathroom, etc. This prompted them to send the masks to the University of Florida’s Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center for analysis.

The below chart, put together by the group of parents, shows the potential dangers from each pathogen:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CHART

Appetizing, eh? Of course, nothing above, or anything else, will deter the extremists in the masking cult, some of whom now want to see masking in schools forever.

RELATED ARTICLE: Muslim Parent Warns: ‘Network Of Political Islam’ Joining ‘Far-Left’ To ‘ Hijack Our Schools

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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WATCH: Marjorie Taylor Greene Leads House GOP Coalition To Sponsor “FIRE FAUCI ACT”

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Fauci should be in jail.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s push to terminate Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is gaining some traction in the House among her Republican colleagues.

Greene has been a vocal critic of Fauci and introduced the Fire Fauci Act in May, a bill that would reduce his salary to $0. The release of thousands of pages of Fauci’s emails only increased Republican criticism of the infectious disease expert and in the weeks since they were published,  more House Republicans signed onto Greene’s bill.

WATCH:

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE AND ‘FIRE FAUCI ACT’: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has expressed sympathetic views towards the QAnon conspiracy theory and has recently compared a Capitol HIll mask and vaccine mandate to the atrocities of the Holocaust, holds a press conference on H.R. 2316, the Fire Fauci Act.

The bill proposes reducing the salary for director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to $0 and calls for an ‘audit of the digital correspondence, policy memoranda, and financial transactions’ of the director’s office from October 2019 to December 2021. She is joined by other pro-Trump Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Mo Brooks.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Fauci Isn’t A Fool, He’s A Villain

INDICT FAUCI: Scientist Warned Fauci China Was Likely Lying About COVID Deaths. Fauci Said Email Was ‘Too Long For Me To Read’

FAUCI PROTEST: World Wide Rally for “Freedom from Faucism” in NYC Foley Square

‘Leaked Emails are Shocking’: Fauci Email Dump BOMBSHELLS, HE LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING, Told China They’d ‘Get Through It Together’

TREASON: Wuhan Lab Funder Daszak Emailed Fauci, Thanking Him for Dismissing Lab Leak Theory

Wuhan Lab DELETED Fauci’s NIH and Gain of Function Mentions From Old Web Pages in Early 2021

LINK TO LEGISLATION: H.R.2316 – 117th Congress (2021-2022): Fire Fauci Act

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Are CDC Bureaucrats & Dem. Politicians Guilty of Mass Murder & Crimes Against Humanity?

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“Common sense is like deodorant. The people who need it most never use it.” – Anonymous

Today, instead of reading the ramblings of your trusty scribe, me, I am copying the writings of another man whose article appeared in Townhall. It is of great importance and relevance as we continue navigating through the BS Covid rules and regulations ( LIES ) that the federal, state and county officials and administrations tried forcing on us. Read and understand everything said. Understand the depth of evil and depravity in our governments. Share it using this blog everywhere to all your contacts including social media and family. Let them understand the depths of depravity our so called leadership has sunk to.

Brilliant Hero Dr.: CDC Bureaucrats & Dem. Politicians Could be Guilty of Mass Murder & Crimes Against Humanity. By Wayne Allyn Root.

I’ve known for well over a year now that we had an effective treatment for COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands of Americans could have been saved.

I knew about this simple, safe, inexpensive treatment with remarkable results because I’ve had a dozen brilliant doctors as guests on my nationally syndicated radio show, “Wayne Allyn Root: Raw and Unfiltered” on USA Radio Network, to talk about their success using Hydroxychloroquine on patients sick with COVID-19.

But one stood out over all others. His name is Dr. Vladimir Zelenko. Here is an excerpt from a column I wrote last summer on the alleged efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine. It was written as a plea to then-President Donald Trump.

“Mr. President, this is the most important column I’ve ever written. We have a successful treatment for Covid-19. Now we need an Executive Order from you to put it into play. …

“This brilliant New York doctor (Zelenko) has treated 2,200 COVID-19 patients. He’s had a success rate of 100% for low-risk patients … and a success rate of 99.3% for high-risk patients by using Hydroxychloroquine, zinc sulfate, plus Z Pak antibiotic. He has named it ‘the Zelenko Protocol.’ It’s the synergy that works. Without zinc and Z Pak, the drug Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work as effectively.

“The other key to success is to use this three-part protocol within five days of symptoms appearing. It has to be used (SET ITAL)early,(END ITAL) before the patient winds up in the intensive care unit. That’s why several studies of Hydroxychloroquine have failed. They never used zinc sulfate and they started the protocol too late.

“Only 2 out of 2,200 of Zelenko’s patients died. Of those two, one already had cancer. The other was very old and already very ill with COVID-19 before using the protocol. By that time, it’s almost always too late. …

“We all need to follow Zelenko’s regimen. … But we can’t. Doctors won’t prescribe the so-called Trump drug. Liberals, the media, the Food and Drug Administration, government bureaucrats — none of them wants to give Trump the credit if it works. Politics is killing thousands of Americans.

“Mr. President, we need an Executive Order. Immediately. … Every sick American must have the freedom to choose this ‘Zelenko Protocol.’ We have a right to choose. We have a right to live.”

If only Trump had listened to Zelenko instead of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the corrupt bureaucrats of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration. That was a year ago. How many hundreds of thousands of Americans have died needlessly in the past year? Isn’t this mass murder?

Have you seen the latest headlines? Multiple studies show that the use of Hydroxychloroquine across the globe reduced death and boosted survival rates by 84%, 100% and in one study, 200%. It really works. And that’s without what Zelenko calls “the key ingredient” (zinc sulfate). He also recommends another highly effective drug called ivermectin.

Because of Zelenko, I’ve informed my listeners about Hydroxychloroquine, zinc and ivermectin for a year now.

Yet even with all these new studies and factual evidence, YouTube just hours ago suspended U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., for promoting a video touting early treatment with Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. YouTube called it “medical misinformation.”

It’s time to start asking why treatments for COVID-19 proven in multiple studies around the world to save lives are slandered, censored and banned by social media? Who are they to ban life-saving information? Who are they to label life-saving information as “medical misinformation”? What’s in it for them if thousands die needlessly? Somebody clearly is getting filthy rich on this scam.

I asked Zelenko about it on a return visit to my show only days ago. He said: “Pre-hospital treatment of COVID-19 was intentionally suppressed. Life-saving information and medication was intentionally suppressed. … Out of 600,000 dead Americans, we could have saved 510,000. The American people have been brutalized and are the victims of mass murder and crimes against humanity.”

I asked Zelenko for his solution to this ongoing tragedy. He said, “Number one, immediately endorse pre-hospital treatment with the Zelenko Protocol, and make it the standard of care. Number two, we must bring these criminals to justice.”

Amen.

COLUMN BY

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT

Wayne Allyn Root is the author of the new No. 1 national bestselling book “TRUMP RULES.” Wayne is a CEO, entrepreneur, and host of the daily nationally syndicated show “Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered” on USA Radio Network, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST and the “WAR RAW” podcast.

Biden’s 90-Day Intelligence Study of Coronavirus Origins is a Farce

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We now know that in their zeal to defeat President Trump’s reelection, the mainstream media ignored evidence that the coronavirus pandemic likely originated from a leak from a Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.

The Biden campaign used this slanted media coverage to lambast Trump for his handling of the pandemic. It distracted Americans from what Trump did right about this national crisis, such as banning travel from China in early February 2020 and “Operation Warp Speed” which developed effective vaccines against the virus in record time.

With the election long over, some mainstream reporters — including from CNN and The Wall Street Journal — have begun to acknowledge compelling evidence that the virus originated from a Wuhan biolab, was released by accident, and that Beijing engaged in a massive coverup to hide these facts and shift the blame.

These reports suggest Trump was right about the virus originating in a Wuhan lab and that Chinese government negligence allowed it to become a deadly pandemic. This is problematic for Biden, who called Trump xenophobic for using terms like “Wuhan virus.” It also undermines Biden’s less confrontational China policy which prioritizes cooperation on climate change.

Biden responded to the new press reports on the virus origins by asking the U.S. intelligence community to do a 90-day intelligence review to get an authoritative assessment of this issue.

This request was a farce for several reasons.

First of all, the president said he ordered the 90-day review because of new intelligence that researchers at a Wuhan biolab were sick with a coronavirus-like illness in November 2019. In fact, this was not new information since a State Department fact sheet released on January 15, 2021 said the same thing.

More importantly, there is every reason to believe that American intelligence agencies slanted their assessments of the virus to avoid helping Trump politically just as the mainstream media did.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe revealed similar politicization of China analysis last January when he released a report by the Intelligence Community Ombudsman for Politicization which found intelligence analysts deliberately ignored and downplayed intelligence indicating Chinese meddling in the 2020 election and promoted intelligence suggesting Russian election interference.

The reason, according to the report, was animus toward President Trump from intelligence analysts and their determination not to produce any analysis that could help Trump politically.

This is why in May 2021, when many media outlets, foreign governments and experts had concluded the virus probably originated and leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, U.S. intelligence analysts were split, with a minority assessing with low to medium confidence that the source was either an animal or the Wuhan lab, and a majority claiming there was no way to know the source.

President Biden does not actually expect our intelligence agencies to produce anything new on the coronavirus origins. He wants political cover from another vague and inconclusive analysis that he can use to justify his soft China policy. This includes not putting serious pressure on Beijing to cooperate with an investigation of the virus origins.

This is the latest serious misuse of America’s intelligence agencies which were created after World War II to provide U.S. presidents with intelligence to make sound national security policies.

They were not created for Congress and the Executive Branch to use to adjudicate, advocate for, or justify foreign policy issues by claiming intelligence assessments are unassailable and infallible because U.S. intelligence agencies are above the partisan politics of Washington. No serious person in Washington believes this.

Nevertheless, presidents and members of Congress have increasingly tried to use U.S. intelligence agencies to bless their foreign policy positions and gain political advantage on issues such as climate change, Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea, Russia, China and other issues. This has been a growing problem at the annual worldwide threat briefings when intelligence officials give unclassified testimony on global threats.

President Trump wisely suspended these briefings in 2019 because they had become a political circus after Democrats used them to press intelligence officials to say several of Trump’s national security initiatives would fail. The Biden administration resumed these briefings in April.

The determination of the likely origins of the novel coronavirus should be made by President Biden with input from a variety of sources and experts. U.S. intelligence agencies should contribute to this determination in private, but not make it itself because these agencies have neither the expertise nor the trust of the American people issue be the final word on this issue.

For our intelligence agencies to produce the highest quality and trustworthy intelligence for U.S. presidents, it is time to stop dragging our intelligence agencies into political disputes.

COLUMN BY

Fred Fleitz

President and CEO, Center for Security Policy.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column Originally published by Newsmax is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Dirty Secret of Child Marriage

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None of the organizations dedicated to combating it dares face why it’s so prevalent.

It was an emblematic incident: the News Agency of Nigeria reported Wednesday that “the Chief Imam of the Nasrul-lahi-li Fathi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT), Abdul Azeez Onike, says Islam supports underage marriage.” Onike said thus at a press conference launching his new initiative, “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls,” which was “organised by NASFAT with support from UNICEF.” Is UNICEF troubled by Onike’s support for child marriage? Not enough to keep from working with him. This was yet another example of the abject failure of global “human rights” organizations to confront the uncomfortable fact of why child marriage is so common in some areas of the world: because it is sanctioned in Islam.

Onike himself made this clear, insisting “that the Islamic scripture was clear about marriage” and calling for people to refer to Islamic texts “instead of using contemporary standards” to determine whether or not child marriage was an acceptable practice.

If Abdul Azeez Onike said this in the U.S., he would be excoriated as an “Islamophobe.” But in reality, child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.

Numerous Islamic authorities worldwide attest to this. Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in January 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry.

Ishaq Akintola, professor of Islamic Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights Concern, Nigeria, has said: “Islam has no age barrier in marriage and Muslims have no apology for those who refuse to accept this.” An Iraqi expert on Islamic law, Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-‘Ubeidi, agrees, saying: “There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law.”

So does Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent Muslim cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council: “There is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”

Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology has declared flatly: “Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.”

These authorities say these things because hadiths that Muslims consider authentic record that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.

Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.

Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:

The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women, if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.

Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

According to Amir Taheri in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (pp. 90-91), Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.

Yet despite all this, worldwide organizations dedicated to ending child marriage universally fail to acknowledge its justifications in Islam. The UN High Commissioner of Human Rights never mentions Islam in connection with child marriage. UNICEF doesn’t, either. Nor does the international network Girls Not Brides or the International Women’s Health Coalition. The latter does say: “Child marriage occurs in every region of the world, and is practiced across cultures, religions, and ethnicities,” and while that is true, no religion or culture offers as much justification for child marriage as Islam does.

Until that is acknowledged, the root causes of this problem will never be addressed. And more girls will suffer.

RELATED ARTICLES:

“Concerted detective work. ‘Did Muhammad Exist?’ is no polemic. It is a serious quest for facts.”

Pakistan’s Khan urges strict action against online ‘hate,’ says it’s the root cause of ‘Islamophobia’

Hamas gives Al Jazeera an award for its ‘high professionalism’

Afghanistan: Sunni Muslims bomb two minivans in Shi’ite neighborhood, murder seven ‘disbeliever Shi’ites’

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Defector Provides Evidence That the Chinese Military Orchestrated the Creation of COVID-19 and Lab Leak

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COVID is/was an act of war.

EXCLUSIVE: Defector Provides Evidence That the Chinese Military Orchestrated the Creation of COVID-19 and Lab Leak

One week ago we reported that a man believed to be the highest-ranking Chinese defector ever was working with the Defense Intelligence Agency and that he had direct knowledge of special weapons programs in China, including bioweapons programs. We also reported that the defector provided an extensive, technically detailed debrief to US officials, that the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) was able to corroborate very technical details of the information provided, and that in DIA’s assessment, the information provided by the defector is legitimate.

By: Jennifer Van Laa,r Red Stste,. June 13, 2021:

RedState has now learned some details of the information provided by the defector, including that he provided data proving that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade and leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in addition to evidence confirming that the People’s Liberation Army managed the Wuhan program (and others), as Chinese virologist Yan Li-Meng told the FBI last year.

Technical details provided by the defector, RedState is told, were given to scientists (who were not told how that information was given to the government) who then re-analyzed data from published sources in conjunction with the new data and concluded that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered. And, the defector was able to confirm numerous non-public details Yan provided the US government.

Pause for a moment and consider this. Our government now has additional evidence that a virus that killed 600,000 Americans, sickened millions more, nearly destroyed our economy, and inflicted untold collateral damage, was a bioweapon created by the Chinese military and deliberately released.

I say “additional” evidence because the FBI has had some of this evidence for more than a year and the person who brought it forward has only been subjected to a thorough smear campaign for her efforts – which is highly relevant when attempting to understand the newest defector’s actions.

As reported in my original story about the defector, sources told RedState that the FBI, the State Department, and CIA were intentionally kept in the dark about the fact that the defector was working with the DIA. Many in the intelligence community were highly skeptical of that claim for logistical reasons (i.e., China obviously knew the guy was gone as soon as he was gone, and any assets/spies within our government also knew, so how could they keep his location a secret for so long?), but the fact that the FBI had a lot of this information from Yan for more than a year and nothing to investigate or validate it makes it easy to understand why this defector wanted nothing to do with the CIA or, especially, the FBI.

Also, a separate source confirmed to RedState that several members of Congress who have been working on investigating the virus’ origin have been briefed on many of DIA’s findings, including Rep. Matt Gaetz. That explains Gaetz’s grilling of FBI Director Christopher Wray Thursday on Capitol Hill.

Gaetz laid out the thumbnail of Yan’s story to Wray and low-key accused the FBI of being part of the coronavirus origin coverup because they did not attempt to verify the scientific or intelligence information she provided, and they did not prevent the massive effort to discredit Yan undertaken by both the Chinese government, the United States media, and “scientists” like Dr. Peter Daszak. (They may have even been part of that effort.) He said (not in this order):

“On April 28th, Dr. Yan Li-Meng landed at LAX. One of your agents interviewed her at that time. She then traveled to New York. Your agent from Los Angeles followed her to New York and sought an interview on both the 1st of May and the 2nd of May in 2020. The FBI took Dr. Yan’s phone on which she showed evidence of WeChat communications between herself and the director of the CDC in Beijing dating back to December 2019 regarding the Chinese military’s involvement in the development of the virus and specific links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“It is hard to believe that the FBI did not believe Dr. Yan was credible or significant, because she lands on April 28th. Your agent, Dana Murphy, takes her phone that day. I am holding the receipt from when you got the phone that had the WeChat messages that had very important information regarding Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party. It is not every day an FBI agent flies from Los Angeles to New York to follow a Chinese doctor who is a whistleblower and a fact witness. Even if Dr. Yan’s technical analysis of the virus is incorrect, the fact that she showed up saying she wanted to provide information and tell the truth seems significant.

“On October 14th, 2020, FBI agent Andrew Zitman [sp] brought a scientist who was working with FBI to meet with Dr. Yan in New York. They met for nearly six hours.”

Gaetz asked Wray:

  • “When did you become aware of your agency’s interface with Dr. Yan? When did you review those [WeChat] messages?”
  • “Can you tell us anything about that [Oct. 14] meeting and what it tells us about the origins of this virus?”
  • “Will you provide to this committee any scientific analysis that the FBI has done regarding Dr. Yan’s claims and regarding messages she provided to you regarding Beijing’s knowledge of the origins of this virus, and the military’s involvement, and even efforts to try to present to the world a fake genome sequence at the beginning of these developments?”

Wray’s answer to each was essentially that he can’t comment on ongoing investigations and some things might be classified.

Gaetz also mentioned that from that the moment Yan made the “pronouncements” about the Chinese military’s involvement people were trying to discredit her and asked if the FBI was able to determine whether that was part of a counterintelligence campaign by the Chinese government. No answer there, either.

Tellingly, Wray repeatedly said he knew what Gaetz was referring to in his statements. Could he have been referring to the fact that Yan wrote in her papers that the double CGG amino acid sequence was the smoking gun evidence showing that SARS-CoV-2 was an engineered virus (since that sequence hasn’t ever occurred naturally) and was dismissed, but a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published just this week by a Stanford virologist agreed and found that Beijing omitted that sequence from the genome it provided the world at the beginning of the outbreak?

And just how was it that Yan’s information was able to be so effectively dismissed? As we’ve covered over the last few weeks, EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak strong armed other researchers into writing pieces in influential journals, like Lancet and Nature, dismissing the theory, and specifically dismissing Yan’s claims. Those pieces were used by Science Feedback, Facebook’s fact-checker, to deplatform news organizations who shared the information and wouldn’t take it down and to shut down the accounts of individuals who shared the information. News organizations couldn’t even report about Yan’s appearance on Tucker Carlson without being censored by big tech.

But back to Wray. The kicker is the ending to his answer regarding the information gleaned from the October 14 meeting:

“There are differences of view within the intelligence community about the origins of the coronavirus and so forth, and we are taking a deeper dive on the subject.”

A deeper dive? Just now? Not when you got the intel over a year ago? As Gaetz said, you can’t say that you didn’t find Yan at least somewhat credible, and since she was at the very least a fact witness it made sense to fully investigate what she said. If she wasn’t credible that would be learned in quick order. Also, if the FBI took a woman’s phone filled with a lot of information that can get a lot of people killed, did nothing to investigate her claims, and participated in a smear campaign designed to get the world to ignore her, that would look a lot like they were in on the scam.

Is it any wonder that the entire Democrat/Media Complex is trying to destroy Matt Gaetz? Think about when the questions into his supposedly improper relationships with females started flooding the airwaves and which government organization is “investigating” Gaetz. I’m sure it’s all just a big coincidence and not an attempt to silence or intimidate Gaetz.

A lot of bureaucrats in the federal government are justifiably panicking right now, not knowing what other information is going to come to light to show just who knew what, when.

Watch Gaetz’s questioning of Wray below.

RELATED ARTICLE: PODCAST: America’s Post-COVID Prosperity!

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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MIT Data Scientist: Lockdowns Not Correlated With Fewer Deaths (But Are Correlated With More Unemployment)

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Coming to grips with the failure of lockdowns is important for several reasons.

Dozens of studies show that lockdowns were an ineffective pandemic response. The list just got longer.

In May, Youyang Gu, an MIT-trained engineer and data scientist, released data showing that government restrictions were not correlated with lower COVID mortality in America. Government restrictions were correlated with higher unemployment, however.

“In the US, there is no correlation between Covid deaths & changes in unemployment rates. However, blue states are much more likely to have higher increases in unemployment,” wrote Gu, the creator of covid19-projections.com, a pandemic modeling site. “More restrictions in a state is NOT correlated with fewer COVID-19 deaths. However, more restrictions IS correlated with higher unemployment.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is finally winding down and more and more people are beginning to acknowledge some hard truths about the failures of the collective response to the virus.

George Orwell famously observed that during deceitful times telling the truth is a revolutionary act, so the fact that so many people are finally acknowledging hard truths appears to be a sign we are emerging from deceitful times.

For some, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, these truths are bitter medicine. As Hannah Cox recently observed, Fauci has been on the wrong side of numerous pandemic confrontations with Sen. Rand Paul—and has found himself on the losing end each time.

Yet facts are stubborn things. And 14 months after the pandemic’s arrival, we have an abundance of data that shows stay-at-home orders backfired and lockdowns were terribly ineffective at slowing the spread of the virus.

The harms of lockdowns, however, are undeniable: economic collapse, millions of jobs and businesses lost, rampant spending, surging debt and poverty, an explosion of drug overdoses, poor mental health, and a collapse of health screenings (including cancer) that will result in hundreds of thousands of excess deaths in the coming years—if not millions.

It will not be easy to acknowledge this failure. As The New York Times noted in 2017, humans struggle mightily to admit we were wrong.

“Mistakes can be hard to digest, so sometimes we double down rather than face them. Our confirmation bias kicks in, causing us to seek out evidence to prove what we already believe,” wrote Kristin Wong. “The car you cut off has a small dent in its bumper, which obviously means that it is the other driver’s fault.”

There’s a name for this psychological phenomenon: cognitive dissonance.

“Cognitive dissonance is what we feel when the self-concept — I’m smart, I’m kind, I’m convinced this belief is true — is threatened by evidence that we did something that wasn’t smart, that we did something that hurt another person, that the belief isn’t true,” Carol Tavris, a co-author of the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), told the Times.

Tavris added that cognitive dissonance poses a threat to our sense of self.

“To reduce dissonance, we have to modify the self-concept or accept the evidence,” Tavris said. “Guess which route people prefer?”

Coming to grips with the failure of lockdowns is important for several reasons.

For starters, the pandemic of 2020 will not be the last pandemic Americans face. If we’re to avoid the painful experience in the future, we’ll need to better understand how the unorthodox pandemic response came about and determine which public health policies worked and which did not.

But there’s an even larger lesson that can be learned. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, F.A. Hayek warned of the danger of mankind’s inability to recognize the limits of its knowledge and power.

“There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success”, to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will,” Hayek said.

Dizzy with success in this age of wonders, Hayek feared humans would be bewitched by their accomplishments and believe they could achieve anything if they could only control society—”a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.”

We witnessed firsthand in 2020 the fruit borne from this effort to control society to save it. There’s an important lesson in humility there, if humans are wise enough to see it.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Look Into OnlyFans: Child Sexual Abuse Material and Trafficking

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OnlyFans markets itself as a social media platform where “influencers” can sell their content to a subscriber base. However, it is no secret that the overwhelming majority of the content sold on OnlyFans is in fact pornography. OnlyFans has thus become the latest iteration of the commercial sex industry—and its popularity is rapidly escalating. What is perhaps most concerning is that OnlyFans is even growing in popularity amongst children.  

Recent news stories (also see stories here, here, and here) have highlighted cases of minors creating and selling sexually explicit content of themselves on OnlyFans. The child sexual abuse material (CSAM, the more apt term for “child pornography”) found on OnlyFans also includes instances where children are exploited by traffickers. 

Thus far, OnlyFans’ Age Verification systems have failed to detect and prevent these cases of CSAM. What’s more, their marketing strategies and attempts to normalize the commercial sex industry are contributing to the allure children feel towards webcamming through OnlyFans. 

Children Selling Self-Generated CSAM for “Easy Money”

A recent BBC article offers a very thorough investigation into the issue of minors creating and selling CSAM of themselves on OnlyFans. A common theme emerged among multiple cases: children are enticed by the promise of easy money, as well as the hope of growing in popularity and social influence.

As one 13-year-old said: “I know it’s not appropriate for kids my age to be doing this, but it’s an easy way to make money. . . Some of the girls have thousands of followers on Instagram and they must be raking it in—I wanna be just like them.” 

Another 16-year-old bragged to her school career advisor about the money she was making through OnlyFans, asking why she should listen to any career advice from her.  

OnlyFans’ marketing strategies are contributing to this dangerous allure for children. By branding themselves as an “influencer” platform, OnlyFans has helped fuel these children’s tragic notion that the way to become popular and influential is to sell their bodies. OnlyFans intentionally blurs the lines between the commercial sex industry and mainstream social media, saying, “As far as we’re concerned, if you use social media and produce your own content, you should be using OnlyFans.”

This serves to further normalize the commercial sex industry amongst young people, who likely don’t understand the extensive short and long-term harms and risks inherent in the industry. OnlyFans promises easy money to new and amateur “content creators” with their slogan: “Anyone can earn.” They declare on their website that earnings could be between $1,499 and $7,495 per month.  

Even if OnlyFans is not deliberately targeting children, or designing their market strategies with minors in mind, a dangerous consequence of their marketing has been to attract many minors into the commercial sex industry, many of whom likely would not have been attracted to the industry in other forms. 

Lesser Known Risks Associated with Webcamming

As the commercial sex industry becomes increasingly normalized in society, many adults—let alone children—may enter the industry without properly understanding the risks or harms involved. Webcamming in particular is often lauded as being harmless and especially empowering, and an increasing number of young people consider it to be normal. 

Research and anecdotal evidence from survivors shows that the webcamming sector of the commercial sex industry is still rife with potential psychological, socio-emotional, and physical harms.

Participants in studies have described webcamming as psychologically traumatic or distressing. For example, in one study a participant named Jessica describes sitting in a corner traumatized for the entire day after her first webcamming performance, while a participant named Ken says he did not leave his room for an entire week. This psychological trauma is a common theme in studies on all forms of prostitution; the online nature of webcamming does not appear to erase the trauma.  

There are also other risks and harms which are in fact heightened by the unique nature of the webcamming industry. For example, the online nature of webcamming leaves performers extremely vulnerable to doxxing, stalking, extortion, blackmail, and “capping” (ie. customers filming the webcammer’s private “shows” and posting them online without her consent). Webcammers in one study state that capping is “pretty much inevitable” and is “one of the risks you’ll have to come to terms with in this line of work”. Some researchers argue that the risks of stalking or other forms of harassment are heightened by the interactive nature of webcamming and the fact that webcammers are encouraged to communicate directly with subscribers. 

In addition, the ease with which anyone can start webcamming and the increased normalization and popularity of webcamming has turned it into a highly competitive industry, as it is flooded with content and content-creators. As a result, studies find that webcammers often must escalate to performing more and more dangerous, extreme, or degrading acts, to stay ahead of the competition. Finally, the risk of being trafficked is not eliminated in webcamming, as numerous studies show. Which brings us to the other form of CSAM found on OnlyFans: instances in which children are being exploited by traffickers. 

Cases of Trafficked Children on OnlyFans

While much of the CSAM on OnlyFans is a product of minors uploading their own self-produced content, police and child protection agencies are also uncovering cases of children being trafficked or exploited on the platform. 

For example, the Vice President of the National Centre on Missing and Exploited Children, Staca Shehan, states: “In 2019 there were around a dozen children known to be missing being linked with content on OnlyFans. Last year the number of those cases nearly tripled.”

Police forces have also received complaints from children who had others upload intimate images of them to OnlyFans without their consent. In another case, a minor had her face edited onto someone else’s body (i.e. “deepfake”), and the resulting pornographic content uploaded to OnlyFans. Yet another minor complained to the police that she was blackmailed into posting images on OnlyFans. 

Insufficient Age Verification Systems in Place

Although OnlyFans claims to have robust, constantly improving Age Verification systems to prevent CSAM from being uploaded to the site, these systems have failed in all of the aforementioned cases. 

Minors have been able to cheat the Age Verification systems by using fake ID’s or ID’s owned by older relatives. In one case, a minor named Leah used a fake driving license to create an OnlyFans account and upload sexually explicit material. Leah’s age was anonymously reported to OnlyFans at a later date, but after reviewing the account, the company decided that it “appeared legitimate”, and no further action was taken. Leah’s age was also stated on numerous other social media sites; OnlyFans claims to check other social medias as part of the account verification process, but this evidently did not stop them from allowing Leah’s account. OnlyFans finally shut down Leah’s account after being contacted by BBC News, but by that time CSAM from her account had been downloaded and uploaded in numerous other places, all across the internet. 

OnlyFans claimed that Leah’s case, and others like it, happened during a transition “from one effective ID age verification system to a new exceptionally effective” system. However, BBC News tested this supposedly “new exceptionally effective” system in April, and succeeded in creating an OnlyFans account for a 17-year-old by using her 27-year-old sister’s passport. 

OnlyFans is putting children at risk with their lack of sufficient age verification and their dangerous influence on culture. That is why OnlyFans was named to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s 2021 Dirty Dozen List. We must work collectively to prevent platforms like OnlyFans from further normalizing sexual exploitation and causing harm to women and children.

EDITORS NOTE: This NCSE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: 40k to 400k Americans DEAD from Covid Vaccines

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The VAERS reporting system lists 4100 dead by Coivd-19 vaccines. That number is only a small fraction of the total number of dead. So, while Joe Biden attempts to shame tens of millions of Americans into getting a vaccine or be forced to wear a scarlet letter mask and while Dr. Fauci continues to cover-up the truth about how and where the coronavirus originated, the American people are being denied the facts about these medical devise vaccines. Graham Ledger speaks with Dr. Bryan Ardis of Ardis Labs about what Dr. Fauci is hiding, the actual VAERS numbers, and WHEN we might start to see some of these long-term, adverse effects from the vaccines, like sterilization and autoimmune disease.

WATCH:

©The Ledger Report. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Vaccine Remorse — Got the Shot? Judy Mikovits On What to Do About It

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So, you’ve received one of the covid “vaccines” but now have buyer’s remorse because you now understand reality. These are not vaccines at all; this is a giant, unprecedented biological experiment that could have many, crippling and/or deadly side-effects. Graham Ledger talks with scientist Judy Mikovits about what the vaccinated can do now to inoculate from this experimental inoculation.

WATCH:

©The Ledger Report. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Tiny Bistro In Very Blue State Standing-up to Government Tyranny

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The Marxist Governor of California is lying and bragging simultaneously about a phony, rosy economic picture in the once Golden State. Gavin Newsom has crushed business and only a few Constitutional Americans have had the guts to say “no” to his unconstitutional attacks.

Graham Ledger speaks with the owner/operator of the Apple Bistro, Jennette Waldow, in Placerville, CA. about the price one restaurant is paying for standing up to a tyrannical government.

WATCH:

©The Ledger Report. All rights reserved.

15 States Are Moving to Curb Public Health Agency Powers Following Lockdown Carnage

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Mike Fratantuono grew up in a restaurant. Literally.

For decades, Sunset Restaurant in Glen Burnie, Maryland, was the family business. Over the years, he’d done seemingly every job imaginable: busboy, bartender, and butcher; prep cook and plumber; handyman and manager.

Fratantuono says that’s what made it so hard to watch the family’s legacy become a COVID casualty in 2020.

“It kills me. We were supposed to be getting ready to celebrate our 60th anniversary this year, and instead we’re packing up and closing at the end of this month,” Fratantuono told the Washington Post last year. “I try not to get too sentimental about it, because it won’t change a damn thing, but sometimes the stress hits me and my heart starts going like crazy. I get frustrated. It makes me angry.”

Fratantuono is just one of the countless business owners across America who saw their dreams vanish before their eyes in the wake of government lockdowns that crushed their businesses. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, states across the country are advancing legislation to curb the powers of public health departments following one of the most destructive and contentious years in American history.

In May, the Network for Public Health Law published a report showing that in recent months no fewer than 15 state legislatures have passed or are considering passing measures that would restrict the legal authority of public health departments.

Among the provisions passed or considered are the following:

  • Prohibitions on requiring citizens to wear masks;
  • Prohibiting health agencies from closing businesses or schools;
  • Banning the use of quarantines for people who have not been shown to be sick;
  • Preventing state hospitals and universities from requiring vaccinations for employees and students;
  • Preventing local governments from exercising emergency powers that are inconsistent with state health department guidelines;

Earlier this year, for example, North Dakota passed legislation making it unlawful for state officials to force citizens to wear masks—just one of a growing number of states to place restrictions on mask orders. In March, Kansas’s legislature passed legislation that removes the governor’s ability to shut down businesses during a public health emergency.

Meanwhile, more than 40 states passed legislation that made it unlawful for health departments to mandate COVID-19 vaccination.

A Serious Threat to Life?

The report concludes that opposition to “reasonable” public health measures poses serious dangers to life and health.

“Legislation to stop expert public health agencies from leading the response to health emergencies creates unforeseen, serious risks to life and health,” the report states. “These laws could make it harder to advance health equity during a pandemic that has disproportionately sickened and killed Black, Hispanic and Latino, and Indigenous Americans.”

Not mentioned in the report, however, are the unintended consequences of the actions taken by public health agencies across the country in 2020. The collateral damage of lockdowns included business closures, job losses, supply disruptions, mass protests, surging violence, increased mental health problems, unprecedented drug overdoses, and a collapse in cancer screenings.

Public health agencies, meanwhile, proved incapable of taming the coronavirus through the use of lockdowns. And these struggles were not confined to the United States.

“A new study by German scientists claims to have found evidence that lockdowns may have had little effect on controlling the coronavirus pandemic,” The Telegraph reported last week. “Statisticians at Munich University found ‘no direct connection’ between the German lockdown and falling infection rates in the country.”

The devastating impact of lockdowns, combined with their failure to slow the spread of the virus, demonstrates why states are right to curb the powers of public health agencies.

If 2020 taught us anything, it’s the danger of unchecked executive power. Using emergency powers, governors and public health bureaucrats across the country took unilateral, sweeping, and indefinite measures that massively damaged livelihoods and infringed on the rights of millions of Americans. People were fined and arrested for simply gathering privately or exercising outside, walking a pet, paddling a boat on the water (alone), or taking a child to the park—even though most transmissions took place in homes and the coronavirus is rarely transmitted outdoors.

Americans may disagree on the precise role public health departments should play in society today. But the pandemic reminded us why checks and balances on concentrated power are so important.

The American constitutional system was deliberately designed to avoid concentrated power because the Framers feared it above all else.

“The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty,” wrote John Adams.

The authors of the Network for Public Health Law report express concern that public health agencies are being stripped of the power to act by dangerous radicals. The truth is that dangerously radical government agencies are being put in check.

Ohio, for example, passed a law in March that limits the length of a public health emergency order to 90 days unless it’s extended by the legislature. The same month, lawmakers in Utah passed legislation allowing the state legislature to override state health agency orders during public health emergencies. Missouri, meanwhile, has proposed a law that limits lockdowns to 15 days, after which extensions must be approved by legislative bodies.

These reforms are not radical. They are both reasonable and sensible. They do not represent an attack on science—which tells us what is, not what we ought to do—but are prudent checks on power from lawmakers acting within their rightful province.

“It is necessary to curb the power of government,” the economist Ludwig von Mises noted in Human Action. “This is the task of all constitutions, bills of rights and laws. This is the meaning of all struggles which men have fought for liberty.”

The preservation of liberty, protected by separating and checking power, is the ideal on which the American system was founded. Following a year that saw Americans’ rights, dreams, and health trampled by central planners wielding vast power with little restraint and few checks, it’s a vision Americans are right to rekindle.

Just ask Mike Fratantuono and the millions of other Americans whose lives were derailed in 2020.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

RELATED VIDEO: Three Reasons the CCP Might Have Created Covid as a Bioweapon

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE  column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Records Show NIAID under Dr. Fauci Gave Wuhan Lab $826k for Bat Coronavirus Research From 2014 to 2019

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(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today announced that it obtained 280 pages of documents from the Department of Health and Human Services revealing that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

The documents, some of which were redacted or withheld in their entirely, were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records of communications, contracts and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-00696)). The agency is only processing 300 pages records per month, which means it will take until the end of November for the records to be fully reviewed and released under FOIA.

The records include a chart of NIAID funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology sent on April 21, 2020, by NIAID’s Chase Crawford to Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchincloss and other NIAID officials. The agency funds directed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology between the years 2014-2019 total $826,277. All of the projects listed in the chart are titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

In an April 15, 2020 email marked “high” importance, Principal Deputy Director of NIH Lawrence Tabak emailed Fauci, NIH Director Francis Collins, and other NIH officials with the subject line: “HEADS UP: Wuhan lab research:”

Tabak: WH has strongly embraced concerns raised by Congressman Gaetz who is publicly criticizing HHS/NIH for funding the Wuhan laboratory’s bat research. Here’s this quote from another article: “I’m disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities.” [Emphasis in original]

This is a large multi-country study with Wuhan being one site. The principal investigator, Peter Daszak, is based in NY at EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. [Emphasis in original]

Tabak provides details of the grant to Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, for a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” Tabak continues, saying, “The 3.7M dollar figure is over 6 years to all sites which include (several in) China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar. We estimate that approximately $826,300 has been spent at this site since the inception of the grant. Yearly costs appear to be about 80K/year. The grant is in year 6 of a total of 10 year.”

A January 9, 2020, email exchange labeled “high” importance between NIAID Senior Scientific Advisor Dr. David Morens and Daszak details the relationship between the Fauci agency and the Wuhan Institute of Virology: 

Morens: Hi guys, do any of you have any inside info on this new coronavirus that isn’t yet in the public domain? Or any thoughts? 

Daszak: Yes – lots of information and I spoke with Erik Stemmy and Alan Embry yesterday before the news was released. Erik is my program officer on our coronavirus grant specifically focused on China…. 

Morens: Thanks, the excitement never ends, right?

Daszak: NIAID has been funding coronavirus work in China for the past 5 years … (1R01Al110964: “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” ). That’s now been renewed … Collaborators include Wuhan Institute of Virology (currently working on the nCoV), and Ralph Baric [of University of North Carolina]. 

Also-FYI, prior to the R01, we worked under an R01 with Eun-Chung Park as program officer on viral discovery in bats, where originally identified SARS-CoV as having a likely origin in bats (published in Science)….

Morens: Great info, thanks. Tony doesn’t maintain awareness of these things and doesn’t know unless program officers tell him, which they rarely do, since they are across town and may not see him more than once a year, or less…. Interested in your feeling about where this is going. The experts are buzzing around us are all over the map, between doomsday and not that big a deal, with everything in between.

On January 23, 2020, a senior NIH official Melinda Hoskins forwarded a Daily Mail article to colleagues discussing NIH/NIAID funding of the bat virus research, and noting that Fauci would be briefing senators the following morning. Hoskins says, “Would you please confirm the exact nature of our support to the Wuhan Institute of Virology/Biosafety Lab.” 

Another official, Barbara Mulach, responds that, “We’ve identified one grant with a sub-grant to Wuhan Institute of Virology (thanks for the lead) and one primary grant to Wuhan University. We are trying to get clarification whether or not the two organizations are related so we know if the second application is relevant to the request or not.”

She provides data showing a “Sub-award to Wuhan Institute of Virology,” with Daszak as principal investigator for a project titled, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” and she provides information on another award, grant number R01AI119064-06, with principal investigator Ke Lan, going to Wuhan University and titled, “Versatile functions of LANA in KSHV pathogenesis.”

In an April 13, 2020, email from NIH official Emily Erbelding to NIH colleagues, Erbelding notes that the “entire amount of the new Daszak grant (year 6 funded in FY19) is about 3.64 M. The total amount that will go to Wuhan Institute of Virology under this grant will be about $750K ($76,301 had already been sent to Wuhan in year 1 according to the NOA).” Additionally, the email notes that bat sampling work done during years 2011-2015, in addition to receiving funding from Daszak’s grant, “could also have been supported by USAID Predict program (which was also funding the Wuhan lab).”

Auchinloss forwards Erberlding’s note to Fauci, saying, “This is higher but not extraordinarily higher than I originally indicated which was for some earlier work.” Fauci replies, “Thanks.”

In an April 15, 2020, email exchange, Tabak asks his colleagues if Daszak’s team had “published anything seminal related to the current pandemic.” Erbelding responds, “Peter’s only publication on SARS CoV2 since the epidemic began is thought piece in NEJM [New England Journal of Medicine]” to which she provides a hyperlink. She adds, “Note that all of the prior work on zoonotic reservoirs of CoV’s was also supported by USAID funding through a program called PREDICT, which has since ended.”

On October 1, 2017, after receiving Daszak’s email related to his then-unpublished paper describing detailed research into a novel bat-born virus tied to Swine Acute Diarrheal Syndrome, Fauci forwards Daszak’s email and paper on to NIH official Greg Folkers, saying, “Confidential, but fyi for you.” Daszak says, “You should know that this work was supported by a NIAID ROl that [NIH’s] Erik Stemmy is the Program Officer for, and that I’m PI [principal investigator] on, with Zhengli Shi [the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of the Wuhan Institute of Virology] as co-PI.”

A person whose name is redacted on April 19, 2018, CCs an email to “International Cables (HHS/OS)” with the subject line “China Virus Institute Welcomes More U.S. Cooperation on Global Health Security,” includes a U.S. cable: 

China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a global leader in virus research, is a key partner for the United States in protecting global health security. Its role as operator of the just-launched Biosafety Level 4 (or ‘P4’) lab- the first such lab in China – opens up even more opportunities for expert exchange, especially in light of the lab’s shortage of trained staff.

In the last year, the lab also hosted visits from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and experts from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. The institute reports to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

P4 Lab is Open and Transparent, Officials Emphasize

Officials described the lab as a “regional node” in the global biosafety system and said it would play an emergency response role in an epidemic or pandemic. The lab’s English brochure highlighted a national security role, saying that it is “an effective measure to improve China’s availability in safeguarding national bio-safety if [a] possible biological warfare or terrorist attack happens.”

Institute officials said there would be “limited availability” for international and domestic scientists who had gone through the necessary approval process to do research at the lab. They stressed that the lab aimed to be a “worldwide, open platform” for virology. They said they welcomed U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) experts, noting that the Chinese Academy of Sciences was not strong on human disease expertise, having only focused on it in the last 15 years, after the SARS outbreak. A Wuhan-based French consulate official who works on science and technology cooperation with China also emphasized that the lab, which was initiated in 2004 as a France-China joint project, was meant to be “open and transparent” to the global scientific community. “The intent was to set up a lab to international standards, and open to international research,” he said. French experts have provided guidance and biosafety training to the lab, which will continue, the French official said. Institute officials said that France provided the lab’s design and much of its technology, but that it is entirely China-funded and has been completely China-run since a “handover” ceremony in 2016. 

In addition to French assistance, experts from the NIH-supported P4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have trained Wuhan lab technicians in lab management and maintenance, institute officials said.… One Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher trained for two years at the Galveston lab, and the institute also sent one scientist to U.S. CDC headquarters in Atlanta for six months’ work on influenza.

NIH-Supported Research Revises SARS Origin Story

NIH was a major funder, along with the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), of SARS research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s [redacted.]

Ready to Help with the Global Virome Project

Institute officials expressed strong interest in the Global Virorne Project (GVP), and said Chinese funding for the project would likely come from Chinese Academy of Sciences funding already earmarked for One Belt, One Road-related initiatives…. GVP aims to launch this year as an international collaborative effort to identify within ten years virtually all of the planet’s viruses that have pandemic or epidemic potential and the ability to jump to humans. “We hope China will be one of the leading countries to initiate the Global Virome Project,” one Wuhan Institute of Virology official said. China attended a GVP unveiling meeting in January in Thailand and is waiting for more details of the initiative. The officials said that the Chinese government funds projects similar to GVP to investigate the background of viruses and bacteria. This essentially constituted China’s own Virome Project …

U.S.-China Workshop Explores Research Partnerships

 Some workshop participants also expressed skepticism about the Global Virome Project’s (GVP) approach, saying that gaining a predictive understanding of viruses with pandemic potential would require going beyond the GVPs strategy of sample collection, to take an “ecological” approach that considers the virome beyond vertebrate systems to identify mechanisms driving pathogen evolution. A follow-on workshop will be held in June at the University of Berkeley. NSF and NSFC hope to jointly announce a funding call for collaborative projects later this year.

On April 14, 2020, NIH official Marshall Bloom forwarded a Washington Post article by Josh Rogin titled “State Department Cables Warned of Safety Issues at Wuhan Lab Studying Bat Coronaviruses,” and asked a colleague to “Please send to the HCTF [High Containment Task Force]. Thanks!”  

After receiving an article via an email on November 1, 2013, from NIH official Greg Folkers with a cartoon depicting a bat depositing coronavirus particles attacking human ACE2 receptor cells, his colleague, Fauci’s Special Assistant Patricia Conrad writes, “I think we need more slides like this…its too cute!”

A January 19, 2018, State Department cable from the US Embassy in Beijing about the Wuhan Institute of Virology with the subject “China Opens First Bio Safety Level 4 Laboratory” includes a section titled “Unclear Guidelines on Virus Access and a Lack of Trained Talent Impede Research,” which notes in its introduction that “its current productivity is limited by a shortage of highly trained technicians and investigators required to safely operate a BSL-4 laboratory and a lack of clarity in related Chinese government policies and guidelines.”

The memo continues: “To date, WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] has obtained permission for research on three viruses: Ebola virus, Nipah virus, and Xinjiang hemorrhagic fever virus (a strain of Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever found in China’s Xinjiang Province.)”

“These new documents show that funding for the Wuhan Institute was greater than the public has been told,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That it has taken a year and a federal lawsuit to get this first disclosure on COVID and Wuhan is evidence of cover-up by Fauci’s agency.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.