If you guys want to refute it point by point, go ahead, but “balls and strikes” is not a thing with this dude. Let’s stop acting like it was ever a thing.

I still keep up, partly because my line of work is hugely impacted by much of it, but I keep it to a dull background roar. I’m (comparatively) hugely happy because of this, despite everything going on. Lady Raven hates me, though, as she’s still very deep in the news weeds but is banned from talking to me about it.

All part of why I’m annoyed when folks decide to break the pact of leaving that stuff off of KB.

But to say Fauci funded EHA is certifiably insane. The NIH budget back then was over $30 billion. Most grants are in the 1-5 million variety, many a few hundred thou. I won’t do the math because large numbers hurt my head (note to self, play Powerball today), but I think a rough estimate is that’s a great fuckload of grants.

To say Fauci was responsible for those funds is like saying the Queen of England — okay, bad example, Kier Starmer — is responsible for the million dollars the UK just gave me.

We’re monkeys. Sure we’re largely hairless, and drive cars, but we’re monkeys. We are, have been, and always will be. As such, we are driven by a bunch of primitive wants and needs, many of which fly in the face of what others want and need. In our cultural parlance, you can say we’re all venal to varying degrees. Some religions characterize that as something like ‘original sin’ or whatever. Same dif.

Cultural norms (including religions) were first developed in an attempt to get humans to be able to live together without endless horrific behaviors. Hasn’t really worked that well, with things like slavery and an endless list of similar horrors as obvious examples.

So I don’t think things were much better when you were a kid. You just weren’t noticing. Also we had a lot of stronger norms then, so people could hide their venality (see, you know, Mad Men). What we have now is a rapid breakdown of all norms, led from the top, which is allowing all the venality to bubble to the surface. Supplemented by the obscenely rich taking power, not anything new, really, just more dramatically out in the open (as compared to say Rockefeller and his ilk operating in smoke-filled back rooms). It’s all out there for us to admire now. Not a pretty sight.

Raven, I assume you are arguing in good faith. If you believe Fauci is as pure as the driven snow in funding the Wuhan Lab, let me refer you to Senate Resolution 718 of the 118th Congress”

“…. Whereas in 2014, after the Obama Administration mandated a pause on gain-of-
function research, the National Institutes of Health (referred to in
this preamble as “NIH”), led by Francis Collins, including the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (referred to in
this preamble as “NIAID”), led by Anthony Fauci, continued to
authorize grants and research awards to organizations that study the
spread of viruses from animals to humans;
Whereas some such awards went to EcoHealth Alliance and its President, Peter
Daszak, who then disbursed research money to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (referred to in this preamble as the “WIV”) and East China
Normal University;
Whereas experiments advanced by EcoHealth Alliance during the pause included,
among other projects, combining genetic material from a “parent”
coronavirus, known as WIV1, with other viruses;
Whereas the results of such experiments demonstrated varying pathogenicity of
SARS-CoV-2 with different spike proteins in humanized mice;
Whereas a majority of scientists and researchers, including Dr. Lawrence Tabak
and Dr. Ralph Baric, an EcoHealth Alliance collaborator and top
coronavirus expert, when made aware of such experiment, admitted that
EcoHealth Alliance’s coronavirus research appeared to meet the standard
criteria for gain-of-function research;
Whereas NIH and NIAID continued to support EcoHealth Alliance and other
organizations conducting gain-of-function research, according to the
Obama Administration’s definition, through 2017, even though the pause
remained in effect;
Whereas on July 7, 2016, NIAID identified possible gain-of-function research
concerns in an experiment proposed by EcoHealth and conducted by the
WIV;
Whereas in May 2021, Anthony Fauci conceded that during the period between 2014
and 2017 that “it is impossible to guarantee that researchers at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology did not use American funds to perform gain-
of-function research on coronaviruses.”;
Whereas Anthony Fauci and NIAID did not alert senior White House officials
before lifting a ban on gain-of-function research in 2017;
Whereas in November 2019, 3 researchers from the WIV became sick enough to
receive hospital care, and according to United States officials, those
sick researchers were involved in coronavirus research;
Whereas the Chinese government deliberately delayed notifying the World Health
organization that it had detected SARS-like infections from an unknown,
novel pathogen well before it sent official notification in December
2019;

Bob is not going to believe this no matter who says what, even a KB insider with direct experience and knowledge about how things actually work. He has proven to be immune to his own admonitions. He willfully and permanently latches on to anything that attacks the “swamp” and then commits the exact sin that he warns others against: touting the academiccredentials of the rogue authors of a rogue document foisting a conspiracy theory on an ignorant, gullible, and indoctrinated mass of aggrieved right-wingers.

In other words, Raven, don’t hold your breath waiting for Bob to say, “Hey Raven, thanks, that clears things up, I now see how the whole Fauci created the virus and lied about it thing is a house of cards build on a bowl of jello by rogue actors with a destructive agenda.”

Eco Health Alliance itself was a very reputable bunch of wildlife veterinarians doing important work on diseases threatening a whole host of wildlife, some of which threaten species with extinction, and some of which are zoonotic (can pass to humans). Zoonotic diseases are fucking dangerous things, but working on them is important in attempts to stop future pandemics. Choosing to partner with a sloppy lab in China was really unfortunate, and I think you can point fingers in hindsight for some bad decisions there. But there was no bad intent, and Anthony Fauci himself had nothing to do with it.

This is a very self-serving way to look at what transpired, you clearly have bought into the bullshit narrative that Fauci, who happens to be an indisputably preeminent infectious disease expert, didn’t know what he was talking about and is singularly responsible for the pandemic because he purposely funded dangerous unregulated research, even though it’s just as likely that he was not directly responsible as not, or that the origin of the virus would not have occured if Fauci (or any US entity) did not have involvement.

How easy it is to gloss over the absolutely irrefutable fact that his moron of a boss insisted early on that COVID would blow over in a couple of months, or that it might be beneficial to inject bleach or stand under bright lights, or who touted hydroxychloroquine to no end despite no science supporting his claim, who caused folks including himself to get deathly ill by insisting that they not wear masks in his presence or at official meetings, who only survived COVID because he had access to medicines and treatments only available to him because he was president. Not to mention a guy like Ron DeSantis, whose views on social distancing and vaccines caused countless unnecessary deaths after vaccines were available while death rates in NY and other “woke” states declined amongst the same vulnerable groups. Or a quack like Rand Paul who hails from one of the least healthy or educated states in the country and never knew his ass from his elbow during the entire debate.

Has it really escaped you that the main point of keeping kids out of school and social distancing and wearing masks and getting vaccinated and having routine testing was to keep kids from infecting more vulnerable folks like their parents and grandparents and the immunosupressed?

Really Bob, stop pretending to be smart by saying obvious things like “we should question the folks in authority.” No shit, Sherlock.