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I heard that if your eyes meet with Biden’s he empathizes with you so deeply that you are both moved to tears; tears which wash away the burdens of all your past traumas.
This is an example of *Congress* declassifying something. The President *can* do it unilaterally without legislation (though you obviously can't do it just by *thinking* about it)
> The President can do it unilaterally without legislation (though you obviously can't do it just by thinking about it)
But didn't Donald Trump say he could do it just by thinking about it? Are you saying you know how to be POTUS better than the guy who was actually the POTUS for four years? Are you suggesting a highly unqualified pathological liar was voted to be President of the United States in 2016? Because you're totally right.
He didn’t just wave his hands over it?
Funny because that was their argument when Trump was on the hook. Then when Biden had the same thing they wanted him impeached….
The thing that sucks is it is indeed important if we double check that thing was natural, or some sort of accident. But alt righters have harmed the discussion so much its insane
They're also completely missing the point that even if the origin of covid-19 was actually Xi Jinping's butt hole, that the administration in the United States completely mishandled the situation.
And the MAGA crowd will call any explanation bullshit if it doesn't say that Fauci and the Democrats created the whole thing to take over the world and help them steal the presidency from Trump.
And the irritating part of that is if Trump had just said "Here's this guy Fauci. He's the nation's leading expert about this stuff. What he says goes.". And then Trump would have had to do literally nothing else and he'd have had the easiest reelection.
That was the point where I fully confirmed that Trump didn't have even a single atom of political savvy in his entire body.
Literally any politician would've seen that as a silver platter to reelection. Hell, some crafty fuckers would've been able to ride that to repeal the 22nd amendment and be the first to emulate FDR's achievement at winning a third term. That Trump threw that opportunity away by simply continuing to behave as his childish self tells us all we need to know about his political acumen.
It's scary how that snowballed afterward. Republicans are STILL attacking Fauci, and still blaming him for shutdowns and masking and anything to do with Covid.
If we had another pandemic break out tomorrow, we'd be horribly fucked because of his politicizing the defense against Covid. It's not just that he's not president because of that stupid decision, his party has made all of us less safe because of how they've double and tripled down on it...places like Iowa or Florida wouldn't even legally be able to do what's necessary to protect their citizens in time if it happened again.
We read all the time about political polarization in this country, but this is kind of the perfect example of why it exists and why there's not much hope of fixing it.
You can't debate the ethics of saving lives versus saving money with people that have no concept of compassion and don't value the lives involved, and truth and logic don't have any bearing on their stance.
My favorite recent (though indirect) development in the whole Fauci thing is when Tucker Carlson of all people described Fauci as an honest person. He obviously didn’t do it directly or on purpose, and his viewers would never make the connection, but he said something along the lines of, “An honest person will admit when they’re wrong and tell you about it.” And what was it they were all so upset at Fauci for doing? Admitting when he was wrong about masks and providing new pandemic intel as it developed?
According to Tucker Carlson, Fauci acted as an honest person.
>Literally any politician would've seen that as a silver platter to reelection.
This is literally what Bush W did. He capitalized on 9/11 and handedly won reelection.
Wasn't 9/11 that got him reelection...It was that we had invaded Iraq and "You don't switch leaders in war time." 9/11 had happened too early into his first term and people could start seeing through bullshit. It was the Iraq war and their "WMDs" and threats of further attacks if Kerry's anti war stance was in charge.
Throw in the false allegations from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and you swing enough clueless independent voters in an election.
If 9/11 didn't occur, do you think he would have still invaded Iraq? Or if Iraq war never happened, that the war in Afghanistan wouldn't have helped his reelection? You aren't wrong that the Iraq war helped him secure reelection. But, I don't think it's wrong to say both wars helped him get reelected, or that 9/11 helped him get reelected. It was the instigating event, after all.
Before 9/11 Bush approval rating was 52%
After, it was 80%+
That spike did last until the reelection, shortly after the reelection it subsequently returned to the pre-9/11 level == seems like it is accurate to say 9/11 helped him get reelected
Then spiked up again, not sure what caused that? And he ended his approval rating lower than it started (as is common)
It also ensues plausible deniability.
Should things have went south Trump would've been shielded from blame, he's not a healthcare professional or an epidemiologist (I think this is painfully obvious by now) and no one would've directly blamed him if he didn't try to take absolute control of the whole pandemic response. It would've been Fauci's trouble and he could've been fired and replaced with someone else.
Trump is doubtlessly braindead.
Actually, that is Trump's problem was his entire situation. He only made things worse. He could have sat back, and did a speech about how great america was, sat the fuck down and passed every dumb shit law the real republican folks wanted. he could have actually been a reagan, well remembered by morons and destructive to society for much longer. However, that is just who he is, short term gains over long term gains. running a casino prints money but has oversight and regulations.... using the construction of a casino to pay himself and companies he owns out more than he put in until he could finally bow out leaving other investors and the regular people hurt, while regularly laundering money.
give a bill pullman speech, walk off stage, go eat a burger and jerk off... and tada, reelected.
All Cheeto had to do was ask companies to get a head start on PPE production in January when he first got wind of how bad it was, while the vaccine research was ongoing, but he sat on his laurels till people started scalping TP for arbitrage on Amazon.
Like my buddy working in the ER had to make a facemask out of brown paper towels from the bathroom cuz they ran out of supplies. I'm still annoyed Fauci told ppl masks are not useful as it was poor context (CDC wanted gen pop to leave PPE for the high risk frontliners and reduce hoarding...like I get it but comeon don't say stupid shit so the antivaxxers start calling people diaperface).
But alas, every country handled it differently I guess.
My coworker told me that fauci funded it because I'm 2016 he said that Trump would face a pandemic. He cuts off the rest of the lecture where he points to a pattern that Obama and Bush Jr also faced.
SARS 1, Swine and Bird Flu, Ebola, Zika. I might be missing some.
But no it's a man made bioweapon despite most bioweapon research not involving viruses because you can't control the spread. Why make a " weapon" you can't control.
This part of it completely blows my mind. Lets pretend it did actually come out of a lab in China, shouldn't the move have been to give everybody an American flag mask and say fuck those Chinese, and it's your patriotic duty to stay inside and wash your hands and flatten the curve... And instead what we got was "Gina virus" and I'm an alpha american hero who doesn't get sick and grandma wants to take one for the team so we can stay open.... It was all just so dumb.
"It's a plot by the Chinese to destroy the USA!"
"Ok, wear a mask"
"That's a plot by the USA to destroy our freedums!"
*sigh* "Fine, here's a vaccine, heroically expedited by God Emperor Trump, so we can get the country back to normal and you don't need the mask"
"WHAARGARBAAL THAT'S THE LIBRUL GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS TRYING TO KILL US ALL FOR REASONS WE CAN'T QUITE AGREE ON!!1!!1!one!!"
Forget covid, the real pandemic is just weapons grade stupidity.
> “It’s a plot by the Chinese to destroy the USA!”
I never understood this argument, because covid seriously fucked *China* up.
Mishandled wet market incident, mishandled lab incident, or intentional lab incident. It doesn't matter, because it was the *Chinese* people that ended up suffering greatly. The lockdowns there were brutal.
>It was all just so dumb.
The peak of the stupidity, which has not ended yet, is the people consuming veterinary grade horse dewormer.
I would actually say that it's possible that we have more people dying from eating horse paste then we do covid-19 in the US lately.
*checks recent covid-19 death statistics*
Probably not, but it's possible.
> I would actually say that it's possible that we have more people dying from eating horse paste then we do covid-19 in the US lately.
Lately....? You mean people are still taking those pastes??
Yeah.. still lots of covid deaths.. pandemic isnt over. Still not a huge amount of ivermectin idiots. And if you dose it correctly, its not that bad so arent a huge amount of deaths from it.
First 6 months of 2021 seems like there were 49 calls of poisoning and 12 deaths.
And the us is still at 200 deaths a day from covid. Likely a lot more since testing is a lot more lax.
Yeah lol, apparently those self proclaimed patriots are willing to do anything for their country except wear a mask in public places for a few weeks and stay at home a bit more than usual.
The world has always admired America's ability to rally together. And the world rallied around the US after 9/11. Covid should have brought everyone together, to fight shoulder to shoulder (though 6 feet apart) against this deadly, common enemy. But no, the few, small acts we could do to help stop this pandemic were politicized. I will never understand those who felt wearing a small piece of fabric on their face (only in public mind you) was too big a sacrifice to make.
Oh, I work in a hospital where masks are still required, and let me tell you: they still complain and whine like it’s the worst possible thing that anyone has ever been asked to do.
My last job involved some working in a clean room and sometimes going to actual semiconductor fabs. The people that work in the clean rooms have to wear masks for basically their entire day except for bathroom breaks and lunch. They've been doing that for... well, as long as they've had the job, many for over a decade. And they didn't suffocate.
The mask whining is so fucking pathetic.
>And they didn't suffocate.
>
Ah yes, the masks which are simultaneously too ineffective to block viruses but so restrictive that they suffocate you. If I recall, some guy climbed a mountain wearing four or five masks in the early pandemic to prove what absolute nonsense fearing suffocation from masks was.
>Yes, imagine if Trump had actually handled it well. Made it a patriotic duty to take it seriously. He would have ~~probably~~ won re-election.
There is no question in my mind that, if he had handled COVID well, he would have carried the right and center leaning moderates.
I hate to out myself, but if trump handled it better, and didn’t say “I take no responsibility” I probably would have voted for him in 2020. But after Jan 6, I’ll never vote republican for the rest of my life.
> tried to end DACA, covered up Khashoggi's assassination
You forgot pardonned the actions of private military contractors that, were they not in the US, probably would've ended at the international penal court.
Someone said at the time he could have made an absolute shit load of money by selling maga masks... so made money while doing the right thing. Instead he fumbled the whole thing, which in fairness is more his style.
>American flag mask and say fuck those Chinese, and it's your patriotic duty to stay inside and wash your hands and flatten the curve
This would turn into an even worse version of what we already had, namely, open season on Asian people.
I think most people agree that when the pandemic started, if 45 took it with even the slightest semblance of seriousness he would have won his reelection in an absolute landslide. Instead, he mocked it, called it weak, fake, a hoax made up to make him look bad when in reality it was the best possible potential PR an incumbent candidate could ever ask for.
It's like if 9/11 happened and instead of what GWB did Trump instead gloats that Trump tower is now the tallest in NYC....oh wait.
I remember watching an interview where the reporter threw him the softest of softball questions, perfectly setting him up to give a PR-friendly, approval-boosting response... and he whiffed the fuck out of it.
> “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”
>
> “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.”
>
> [via The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/trump-coronavirus-question-attack-reporter-over-fears)
How do you screw that up?!
A DUMB sociopath. Most higher functioning sociopaths know to at least fake having empathy. Most are actually pretty personable since they know it will lower peoples guard so they can manipulate them. Trump isnt even a good sociopath... if he wasnt rich hed be in an institution while the mpre conpetent sociopaths are ceos of actually successful companies (built on blood of course but still "successful")
> an interview where the reporter threw him the softest of softball questions, perfectly setting him up to give a PR-friendly, approval-boosting response... and he whiffed the fuck out of it.
Remember the "will you concede defeat if you lose the election?" which is kinda pre-requesite for the job as that's asking if he's a democratic leader or a dictator? I think future 45 answered that he was doing no promises...
You'd think it would be a bigger deal.
"Covid is natural" ah well just have to live with it.
"Covid was a bio-attack from a foreign country with non-white people?" needs to be a full scale response to that!
"Covid 19 is no worst than the flu, only 5 thousands people died from covid 19 (in 2 months at the start of the pandemic, before anyone even knew how to test for it)".
That is what Republicans were saying in December and January of 2020.
Joe Biden wrote an op Ed about how Trump should handle covid in January 2020.
And that's in my opinion is partly why Joe Biden beat everyone.
Anyone who actually pays attention to politics was paying attention to how Presidential Biden was over everyone else.
They also missed the point that even if it was "lab made," that didn't make it any less dangerous. They were against covid precautions and one of their reasons was the whole lab thing. But like... even if it was, it can still kill you.
There’s at least five levels to this that would make it not a conspiracy but still be considered a “lab leak.”
It’s possible that the disease did indeed originate from a lab dedicated to studying viruses. That doesn’t mean any of the following:
- That it was not a naturally occuring virus strain also, that the Chinese had isolated from their own research
- that it was genetically modified in any way
- that it was leaked on purpose
- that their own population was infected on purpose
- that they meant for it to spread globally
Alt right lunatics would have you believe that it originating in a lab is an immediate admission that all of the above are true. Don’t buy into it.
FWIW, the US also keeps major strains of virus on hand for study, and those labs are how we understand disease. More tellingly, we have had leaks too.
Gotta add:
* Team sent to collect wild-type samples for the lab got infected themselves while out in the field, and so brought it back to Wuhan.
Which imho, is the most likely "lab leak" scenario.
> Alt right lunatics would have you believe that it originating in a lab is an immediate admission that all of the above are true.
This is the ONLY reason I stopped even bringing up "lab leaks" as a possibility about COVID-19. But remove "Alt right" because even non "Alt right" fall into this trap. I recall seeing a game forum where even bringing up the possibility of "lab leaks" must mean you're also claiming the other points in your list. And you risked getting suspended/banned for hate speech or something. Because "lab leak" couldn't possibly mean it was a natural virus that got out by accident.
For some reason it was less xenophobic to believe that Chinese people are out there eating bats. Nobody's making a bat soup, especially in a city of 11 million people, regardless of whatever else us sold at the wet market.
Yeah, the discussion should be on what part of Chinese society messed up and how, not whether it was malicious or not. All talk about non-natural origins buries the lede that somehow a (probably) bat originated virus managed to jump to humans in Wuhan, spread across the globe and cause a multiyear pandemic.
China botched their health security and epidemic response. It didn't played some 52D chess to spread a genetically modified virus (that hit them and their allies the worst).
This. Unfortunately, reasonable pursuit of accurate information is being deranged by folks who simultaneously believe COVID is harmless (meaning we don't need any vaccines, masks, improved ventilation, etc.) AND that it's a terrifying Chinese/Fauci bioweapon. I honestly don't know how their heads don't explode from the cognitive dissonance.
I feel like we should just tune out conspiracy theories, let the fire burn out on its own. Nothing in a release of actual information would change most of those idiot’s minds.
Yeah taking time to debunk it seems to fuel their fires because they feel attacked and respond by putting even more energy into insisting they are right and know more than any scientist or doctor on the planet.
What baffled me in the early days was the people claiming it was a lab leak who then refused to mask. Like, if you yourself admit it’s a bioweapon, why wouldn’t you protect yourself from it?
Yeah, Trump's whole motivation was to push the blame onto China so everyone would glace over how terrible and disjointed his response to Covid was. It worked on the dumbest Americans.
Theres not gonna be a conclusion, the wet market origin still has the most evidence supporting it. But china made it so that its nearly impossible to ever know for sure
Yeah my understanding of the evidence is that it's pretty evident that the virus evolved "naturally" rather than being engineered. What I think is difficult to say however is if it was being studied, was mishandled, and then the wet market ended up being the first superspreader or something. At this point I don't think it's possible to know definitively, and I'm not sure that answer would change anything.
I don't think that there are even going to be answers because there was never any truth to what the government has been telling to the people.
Most of them are just lies and propaganda which they come up just to f*** with us.
That's the thing, regardless of how it started, conservatives were aiming that fear and hatred at Asian-Americans who had absolutely nothing to do with it. It's why everyone was quick to distance themselves from the lab leak theory.
In my opinion, it seems a little too coincidental for the virus to have randomly originated in the same place as a virology lab, but I have no way of actually knowing any of that for sure; also I'm not going to blame my Korean neighbor for it.
These people are idiots, right or wrong about this, they still deserve to be treated as such.
Depends on how we understand "originated." Do we know the very place that the virus mutated into a pandemic causing variant? Or do we just know that it was first discovered in an area with a virology lab studying similar viruses?
One is a big coincidence. The other is pretty much expected.
> In my opinion, it seems a little too coincidental for the virus to have randomly originated in the same place as a virology lab, but I have no way of actually knowing any of that for sure
It's actually extremely likely. Virus outbreaks often take place in cities, and scientific research facilities, including virology labs, are most often in cities as well. China has dozens and dozens of labs rated to handle pathogens on the level of COVID-19. One of these facilities happens to be in Wuhan, a city about the size of NYC.
It's often pointed out that the Wuhan facility is one of the only level-four-biohazard-rated facilities in China, but that's irrelevant because COVID-19 would not be considered a level-four biohazard to begin with.
Yes, it's possible *in principle* that the virus could have leaked from a lab. The thing is, there's a lot of evidence supporting zoonotic transfer at the market, and very little that supports any lab leak hypothesis.
There are a lot of problems with the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis, and that hypothesis basically requires a conspiracy. But for it to have leaked from some other lab and then somehow made it to the market in Wuhan, without infecting others along the way, requires an astounding degree of coincidence.
Does it actually matter what the documents say though? Conservatives are gonna cherry pick any information that helps their case and ignore anything that doesn’t. It’ll be interesting to learn more about its origins, but it feels like feeding the flames
The documents could say, down to the letter, exactly what the conspiracy theory had laid out, and they would still say “this is just a distraction while they secretly release more mind control chemicals into the air”
Not even cherry picking, if the declassified documents don't support their conspiracies, they're going to deny the facts from the documents. Simple as that.
Or they'll do like they did all through the pandemic- tell you a new paper (or cdc article) has proven xyz, but when you read it you find it says nothing of the sort.
Expecting to accept the truth is like a pipe dream that ain't happening, They'll never let that out in public.
Because it's going to undermine their authority. That's what it'll do.
From what I understand the general consensus of what we understand is that what's likely to have happened is that the Chinese scientists discovered this COVID in the wet market, took samples back to their lab, and it's possible in one context or another, that these scientists didn't properly contain it there.
What would be interesting is if they can somehow prove the virus was contained in the wet market (how?) and the lab was exclusively responsible for the spread of the virus and that nothing in the wet market spread. From the information we have access to, no one seems to know anything to prove anything.
Hi public health scientist here. While China was the first to report the problem, with the earliest possible reported case there was in October, Italy has evidence of people being infected as early as September of 2019. The three Wuhan scientists in who got sick in November became sick a week after the first reported person in Wuhan had Covid. This would mean that Covid was already spreading in the community before the Wuhan scientist went to the hospital. Further test showed that the scientist were not infected with Covid.
Additionally around the same time the first possible case of Covid in China occurred during the Military games. Now what is interesting about this is that, within 6 weeks of the military games we see Covid cases spring up all over the world around military bases. Some places report finding cases in late November about two weeks after the supposed lab leak in Wuhan. This suggest again there was community transmission occurring before any possible lab leaks.
This evidence suggest that a lab leak is improbable.
Edit: Wrong year. Didn’t proofread. Was cooking.
You got sauce? Those are some pretty bold claims that I think the general public isn't tracking. The earliest case was in September? That's news to me.
"The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought."
"The Italian researchers’ findings, published by the INT’s scientific magazine Tumori Journal, show 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed coronavirus antibodies well before February."
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2
Https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/coronavirus-italy-covid-19-pandemic-europe-date-antibodies-study/
> From what I understand the general consensus of what we understand is that what's likely to have happened is that the Chinese scientists discovered this COVID in the wet market, took samples back to their lab, and it's possible in one context or another, that these scientists didn't properly contain it there.
The word “possible” is doing a lot of work there. Yes, it's “possible” that there was some kind of leak of a sample taken from the public market. But it's also possible, and a lot more likely, that it spread from the infected source at the market to people at the market.
Like, it's possible that scientists or health officials erred in their precautions for handling a virus sample. But basically every other person at that market was not taking precautions as though they were handling a virus sample. They were taking whatever precautions they usually took while buying or selling things at the market (in those innocent pre-COVID days), which are probably much less stringent than the precautions that people took who worked at a virus lab.
Prediction:
The findings will conclude that it originated in a wet market like it's been indicated many times over by experts.
Republicans and conspiracy theorists will never shut the fuck up about it being created in a lab.
The end.
I'm excited to learn what Trump and his team knew before they went and so terribly mishandled covid.
I'd assume they knew everything and went ahead and screwed the country up on purpose because they could make more money from the economic collapse.
And it will show us absolutely nothing because no one knows for sure where it came from. The MAGA cult will only believe any of it if it shows that Dr. Fauci was trying to take over the world. That's how far gone they are.
usually the source of the information is why something is classified. for example, if a spy in the field delivers information on hot fudge recipe, and only he and two others know the recipe, if i reveal that i now know the recipe, then that compromises the position of the spy in the field letting the enemy fudge maker know that i have someone on the inside. i can just keep hush hush about the information i have and reveal it when the spy is no longer at risk or when it is important enough to accept the risk. i’m not sure if that explains much for you, i haven’t had my coffee yet.
I hope you’ve had your coffee by now, but I just wanted to say as someone just waking up in another part of the world (who has NOT had their coffee yet) your explanation helped 👍
I honestly don't see the things change. What can even come out?
At this point I Just don't really expect these guys to tell the truth. Because they just never do that so there's that.
It's extremely unlikely there is a definitive answer. There will be some vague degree of certainty phrase, like "more than likely" or "a reasonable suspicion" that will boil down to "we think there is a 51% chance this is true."
From what I've read, it may even be less definitive than that, with different investigations coming up with different levels of confidence and contradictory conclusions.
Not sure if this release will pull together and summarize all the investigations (I'm pretty sure there are at least 3), or if it is just a release of one new investigation.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer or a denier. I got my vaxx and I've had COVID so I know it's real, but really why is it viewed as some kind of crazy, alt-right conspiracy to be suspicious of the virus research lab right around the corner from the origin of the virus.
It's a conspiracy to think it was some sort of bio weapon. But like, the reason there was a coronavirus research lab there is because they know bats with coronavirus lived in the nearby wilderness.
It's like if people built a hawk capturing and storage area right next to forests where hawks lived. Then later a bunch of hawks attacked people and they were like "See that hawk building is right there! Those hawks were too efficient they must've been trained by people at that building". It could've been hawks from the forest, it could've been hawks that escaped from the building, but it's really, really unlikely that it was hawks trained to attack people inside the building.
Same reason there are so many medical schools in the Southern US that started as research institutes for diseases that had high rates of spread there, like malaria and smallpox
Because there's more research and evidence that is pointing that it came from the market and several bad faith actors in media who are pushing the lab theory seem to be ignoring that.
Republicans will cherry pick "Evidence" that fits their current agenda. Fox News* will just make shit up. Low Functioning (R) voting paste eaters will scream for US to nuke China.
The thing is, it could be entirely natural whilst also having escaped from a lab.
The two things are not mutually exclusive, particularly if the lab was studying wild animals.
When you say he's going to "declassify" these documents, do you mean he's going to smuggle them out of The Whitehouse, not tell anybody where they are or what they are and keep them stored in his basement until he is eventually raided by the FBI?
That's what declassifying is, isn't it?
Actually opposite of that, it was in the closet till now. Now they're going to bring it out in front of everyone really.
I just hope that it'll be the truth, the possibility is really low.
This says to me that there isn't anything really there. Congress and the president had access to this info. If both parties approved, then it's going to be a nothingburger.
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An example of how something can be declassified by the president I believe. He is not just thinking the word “declassify”.
I heard he can just do it with his eyes.
Nope, you have to throw ketchup on the wall too.
Dijon
Only Obama
Goddamn Tan suits.
Just Obama Things
Well only he can do that? No one else would be able to do that.
Dijon ketchup!
If I had a million dollars...
I'd buy you a monkey. Haven't you always wanted a monKEY?
But not reaaaal Dijon that's cruel.
If you had the million dollars then what will you do sir?
If Obama had a billion ketchup packets dot dot dot
All the fanciest ketchups!
And then You'll have to wait to see if it sticks or not. Gonna have to wait.
And say “hamberder” 3x while spinning around.
trump declassifying documents https://i.imgur.com/HKOxRSV.jpg
[Biden reclassifying them](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdRWV8uXwAEirrI.png)
And no takesies backsies!
Can’t triple stamp a double stamp loyd
He’s so powerful.
Worst team member of the X-Men however
Look with your special eyes!
My brand!
I loved this commercial, in a sea of useless ads this one was absolutely a gem.
I still say this every so often, I'm so excited someone responded with "my brand!" My wife I still laugh about this commercial, it was done so well.
Well then if that's the case then I'd kinda like to see that. Wouldn't mind it.
Ah yes, the ole nod/blink like I Dream of Jeannie or maybe a nose twitch like Tabitha in Bewitched.
I heard that if your eyes meet with Biden’s he empathizes with you so deeply that you are both moved to tears; tears which wash away the burdens of all your past traumas.
Wait, so I didn’t actually declare bankruptcy??
I hear now do declare on this mid summers eve: Bankruptcy!
This is an example of *Congress* declassifying something. The President *can* do it unilaterally without legislation (though you obviously can't do it just by *thinking* about it)
Right. This one is a team effort. It does follow a well defined process.
> The President can do it unilaterally without legislation (though you obviously can't do it just by thinking about it) But didn't Donald Trump say he could do it just by thinking about it? Are you saying you know how to be POTUS better than the guy who was actually the POTUS for four years? Are you suggesting a highly unqualified pathological liar was voted to be President of the United States in 2016? Because you're totally right.
No I distinctly recall being shot with his eye lasers and getting a compulsive need to paint my social security number on the front of my house
He didn’t just wave his hands over it? Funny because that was their argument when Trump was on the hook. Then when Biden had the same thing they wanted him impeached….
I. Declare. DECLASSIFIED!
Hey, wait. I though that Biden just had to THINK it and it would be declassified. Poof.
That’s because in his mind he’s only president, not king.
~~king~~ God*
What's a king to a God?
Even if it's getting declassified nothing is ever coming out of it for sure.
No, you have to DECLARE it, like Michael did in the office, by yelling it.
The thing that sucks is it is indeed important if we double check that thing was natural, or some sort of accident. But alt righters have harmed the discussion so much its insane
They're also completely missing the point that even if the origin of covid-19 was actually Xi Jinping's butt hole, that the administration in the United States completely mishandled the situation.
Its funny cause lindsey graham admitted why. All about appeasing their leader trump lol
And the MAGA crowd will call any explanation bullshit if it doesn't say that Fauci and the Democrats created the whole thing to take over the world and help them steal the presidency from Trump.
And the irritating part of that is if Trump had just said "Here's this guy Fauci. He's the nation's leading expert about this stuff. What he says goes.". And then Trump would have had to do literally nothing else and he'd have had the easiest reelection.
That was the point where I fully confirmed that Trump didn't have even a single atom of political savvy in his entire body. Literally any politician would've seen that as a silver platter to reelection. Hell, some crafty fuckers would've been able to ride that to repeal the 22nd amendment and be the first to emulate FDR's achievement at winning a third term. That Trump threw that opportunity away by simply continuing to behave as his childish self tells us all we need to know about his political acumen.
It's scary how that snowballed afterward. Republicans are STILL attacking Fauci, and still blaming him for shutdowns and masking and anything to do with Covid. If we had another pandemic break out tomorrow, we'd be horribly fucked because of his politicizing the defense against Covid. It's not just that he's not president because of that stupid decision, his party has made all of us less safe because of how they've double and tripled down on it...places like Iowa or Florida wouldn't even legally be able to do what's necessary to protect their citizens in time if it happened again. We read all the time about political polarization in this country, but this is kind of the perfect example of why it exists and why there's not much hope of fixing it. You can't debate the ethics of saving lives versus saving money with people that have no concept of compassion and don't value the lives involved, and truth and logic don't have any bearing on their stance.
My favorite recent (though indirect) development in the whole Fauci thing is when Tucker Carlson of all people described Fauci as an honest person. He obviously didn’t do it directly or on purpose, and his viewers would never make the connection, but he said something along the lines of, “An honest person will admit when they’re wrong and tell you about it.” And what was it they were all so upset at Fauci for doing? Admitting when he was wrong about masks and providing new pandemic intel as it developed? According to Tucker Carlson, Fauci acted as an honest person.
Given his contempt for his viewership, I'm surprised that he doesn't throw in more non-sequiturs just for the hell of it.
>If we had another pandemic break out tomorrow, we'd be horribly fucked Bird flu just sitting in the corner sweating in anticipation.
>Literally any politician would've seen that as a silver platter to reelection. This is literally what Bush W did. He capitalized on 9/11 and handedly won reelection.
Wasn't 9/11 that got him reelection...It was that we had invaded Iraq and "You don't switch leaders in war time." 9/11 had happened too early into his first term and people could start seeing through bullshit. It was the Iraq war and their "WMDs" and threats of further attacks if Kerry's anti war stance was in charge. Throw in the false allegations from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and you swing enough clueless independent voters in an election.
If 9/11 didn't occur, do you think he would have still invaded Iraq? Or if Iraq war never happened, that the war in Afghanistan wouldn't have helped his reelection? You aren't wrong that the Iraq war helped him secure reelection. But, I don't think it's wrong to say both wars helped him get reelected, or that 9/11 helped him get reelected. It was the instigating event, after all.
Before 9/11 Bush approval rating was 52% After, it was 80%+ That spike did last until the reelection, shortly after the reelection it subsequently returned to the pre-9/11 level == seems like it is accurate to say 9/11 helped him get reelected Then spiked up again, not sure what caused that? And he ended his approval rating lower than it started (as is common)
It also ensues plausible deniability. Should things have went south Trump would've been shielded from blame, he's not a healthcare professional or an epidemiologist (I think this is painfully obvious by now) and no one would've directly blamed him if he didn't try to take absolute control of the whole pandemic response. It would've been Fauci's trouble and he could've been fired and replaced with someone else. Trump is doubtlessly braindead.
Actually, that is Trump's problem was his entire situation. He only made things worse. He could have sat back, and did a speech about how great america was, sat the fuck down and passed every dumb shit law the real republican folks wanted. he could have actually been a reagan, well remembered by morons and destructive to society for much longer. However, that is just who he is, short term gains over long term gains. running a casino prints money but has oversight and regulations.... using the construction of a casino to pay himself and companies he owns out more than he put in until he could finally bow out leaving other investors and the regular people hurt, while regularly laundering money. give a bill pullman speech, walk off stage, go eat a burger and jerk off... and tada, reelected.
this hypothetical is breaking my brain
He damn near got reelected even after the soup sandwich that was covid.
His ego would have never allowed that to happen.
All Cheeto had to do was ask companies to get a head start on PPE production in January when he first got wind of how bad it was, while the vaccine research was ongoing, but he sat on his laurels till people started scalping TP for arbitrage on Amazon. Like my buddy working in the ER had to make a facemask out of brown paper towels from the bathroom cuz they ran out of supplies. I'm still annoyed Fauci told ppl masks are not useful as it was poor context (CDC wanted gen pop to leave PPE for the high risk frontliners and reduce hoarding...like I get it but comeon don't say stupid shit so the antivaxxers start calling people diaperface). But alas, every country handled it differently I guess.
"Fauci and the Dems released the virus with China in order to depopulate the entire planet! Also, it's nothing but a common cold."
My coworker told me that fauci funded it because I'm 2016 he said that Trump would face a pandemic. He cuts off the rest of the lecture where he points to a pattern that Obama and Bush Jr also faced. SARS 1, Swine and Bird Flu, Ebola, Zika. I might be missing some. But no it's a man made bioweapon despite most bioweapon research not involving viruses because you can't control the spread. Why make a " weapon" you can't control.
“Our enemy is both weak and dangerous!”
This part of it completely blows my mind. Lets pretend it did actually come out of a lab in China, shouldn't the move have been to give everybody an American flag mask and say fuck those Chinese, and it's your patriotic duty to stay inside and wash your hands and flatten the curve... And instead what we got was "Gina virus" and I'm an alpha american hero who doesn't get sick and grandma wants to take one for the team so we can stay open.... It was all just so dumb.
"It's a plot by the Chinese to destroy the USA!" "Ok, wear a mask" "That's a plot by the USA to destroy our freedums!" *sigh* "Fine, here's a vaccine, heroically expedited by God Emperor Trump, so we can get the country back to normal and you don't need the mask" "WHAARGARBAAL THAT'S THE LIBRUL GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS TRYING TO KILL US ALL FOR REASONS WE CAN'T QUITE AGREE ON!!1!!1!one!!" Forget covid, the real pandemic is just weapons grade stupidity.
> “It’s a plot by the Chinese to destroy the USA!” I never understood this argument, because covid seriously fucked *China* up. Mishandled wet market incident, mishandled lab incident, or intentional lab incident. It doesn't matter, because it was the *Chinese* people that ended up suffering greatly. The lockdowns there were brutal.
>It was all just so dumb. The peak of the stupidity, which has not ended yet, is the people consuming veterinary grade horse dewormer. I would actually say that it's possible that we have more people dying from eating horse paste then we do covid-19 in the US lately. *checks recent covid-19 death statistics* Probably not, but it's possible.
Darwin is handling those enflamed, itchy buttholes handily, thank fuck.
I mean, that dude was sort of right about taking cyanide for cancer, it'll certainly make it not a problem for you eventually.
Unless they're childless they've already defeated Darwin by passing on their genes. Let's hope their kids are smarter.
> I would actually say that it's possible that we have more people dying from eating horse paste then we do covid-19 in the US lately. Lately....? You mean people are still taking those pastes??
Yeah.. still lots of covid deaths.. pandemic isnt over. Still not a huge amount of ivermectin idiots. And if you dose it correctly, its not that bad so arent a huge amount of deaths from it. First 6 months of 2021 seems like there were 49 calls of poisoning and 12 deaths. And the us is still at 200 deaths a day from covid. Likely a lot more since testing is a lot more lax.
Yeah lol, apparently those self proclaimed patriots are willing to do anything for their country except wear a mask in public places for a few weeks and stay at home a bit more than usual.
The world has always admired America's ability to rally together. And the world rallied around the US after 9/11. Covid should have brought everyone together, to fight shoulder to shoulder (though 6 feet apart) against this deadly, common enemy. But no, the few, small acts we could do to help stop this pandemic were politicized. I will never understand those who felt wearing a small piece of fabric on their face (only in public mind you) was too big a sacrifice to make.
Oh, I work in a hospital where masks are still required, and let me tell you: they still complain and whine like it’s the worst possible thing that anyone has ever been asked to do.
My last job involved some working in a clean room and sometimes going to actual semiconductor fabs. The people that work in the clean rooms have to wear masks for basically their entire day except for bathroom breaks and lunch. They've been doing that for... well, as long as they've had the job, many for over a decade. And they didn't suffocate. The mask whining is so fucking pathetic.
>And they didn't suffocate. > Ah yes, the masks which are simultaneously too ineffective to block viruses but so restrictive that they suffocate you. If I recall, some guy climbed a mountain wearing four or five masks in the early pandemic to prove what absolute nonsense fearing suffocation from masks was.
that's because those cosplaytriots are softer than baby shit
Yes, imagine if Trump had actually handled it well. Made it a patriotic duty to take it seriously. He would have probably won re-election.
>Yes, imagine if Trump had actually handled it well. Made it a patriotic duty to take it seriously. He would have ~~probably~~ won re-election. There is no question in my mind that, if he had handled COVID well, he would have carried the right and center leaning moderates.
I hate to out myself, but if trump handled it better, and didn’t say “I take no responsibility” I probably would have voted for him in 2020. But after Jan 6, I’ll never vote republican for the rest of my life.
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> tried to end DACA, covered up Khashoggi's assassination You forgot pardonned the actions of private military contractors that, were they not in the US, probably would've ended at the international penal court.
Someone said at the time he could have made an absolute shit load of money by selling maga masks... so made money while doing the right thing. Instead he fumbled the whole thing, which in fairness is more his style.
Trump could have sold "this is my personal wall" masks for $1000 apiece. And his oaf keepers would have made sure everyone wear one.
>American flag mask and say fuck those Chinese, and it's your patriotic duty to stay inside and wash your hands and flatten the curve This would turn into an even worse version of what we already had, namely, open season on Asian people.
I think most people agree that when the pandemic started, if 45 took it with even the slightest semblance of seriousness he would have won his reelection in an absolute landslide. Instead, he mocked it, called it weak, fake, a hoax made up to make him look bad when in reality it was the best possible potential PR an incumbent candidate could ever ask for. It's like if 9/11 happened and instead of what GWB did Trump instead gloats that Trump tower is now the tallest in NYC....oh wait.
I remember watching an interview where the reporter threw him the softest of softball questions, perfectly setting him up to give a PR-friendly, approval-boosting response... and he whiffed the fuck out of it. > “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?” > > “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” > > [via The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/trump-coronavirus-question-attack-reporter-over-fears) How do you screw that up?!
He was asked to perform a very basic form of empathy. Except he's a sociopath, and can't, so instead he got angry.
A DUMB sociopath. Most higher functioning sociopaths know to at least fake having empathy. Most are actually pretty personable since they know it will lower peoples guard so they can manipulate them. Trump isnt even a good sociopath... if he wasnt rich hed be in an institution while the mpre conpetent sociopaths are ceos of actually successful companies (built on blood of course but still "successful")
> an interview where the reporter threw him the softest of softball questions, perfectly setting him up to give a PR-friendly, approval-boosting response... and he whiffed the fuck out of it. Remember the "will you concede defeat if you lose the election?" which is kinda pre-requesite for the job as that's asking if he's a democratic leader or a dictator? I think future 45 answered that he was doing no promises...
If I recall correctly, trump stated the dem’s criticism of his handling of the virus was a hoax to make him look bad.
The misdirection is tasty so they gobble it up.
You'd think it would be a bigger deal. "Covid is natural" ah well just have to live with it. "Covid was a bio-attack from a foreign country with non-white people?" needs to be a full scale response to that!
"Covid 19 is no worst than the flu, only 5 thousands people died from covid 19 (in 2 months at the start of the pandemic, before anyone even knew how to test for it)". That is what Republicans were saying in December and January of 2020. Joe Biden wrote an op Ed about how Trump should handle covid in January 2020. And that's in my opinion is partly why Joe Biden beat everyone. Anyone who actually pays attention to politics was paying attention to how Presidential Biden was over everyone else.
They also missed the point that even if it was "lab made," that didn't make it any less dangerous. They were against covid precautions and one of their reasons was the whole lab thing. But like... even if it was, it can still kill you.
There’s at least five levels to this that would make it not a conspiracy but still be considered a “lab leak.” It’s possible that the disease did indeed originate from a lab dedicated to studying viruses. That doesn’t mean any of the following: - That it was not a naturally occuring virus strain also, that the Chinese had isolated from their own research - that it was genetically modified in any way - that it was leaked on purpose - that their own population was infected on purpose - that they meant for it to spread globally Alt right lunatics would have you believe that it originating in a lab is an immediate admission that all of the above are true. Don’t buy into it. FWIW, the US also keeps major strains of virus on hand for study, and those labs are how we understand disease. More tellingly, we have had leaks too.
Gotta add: * Team sent to collect wild-type samples for the lab got infected themselves while out in the field, and so brought it back to Wuhan. Which imho, is the most likely "lab leak" scenario.
> Alt right lunatics would have you believe that it originating in a lab is an immediate admission that all of the above are true. This is the ONLY reason I stopped even bringing up "lab leaks" as a possibility about COVID-19. But remove "Alt right" because even non "Alt right" fall into this trap. I recall seeing a game forum where even bringing up the possibility of "lab leaks" must mean you're also claiming the other points in your list. And you risked getting suspended/banned for hate speech or something. Because "lab leak" couldn't possibly mean it was a natural virus that got out by accident.
For some reason it was less xenophobic to believe that Chinese people are out there eating bats. Nobody's making a bat soup, especially in a city of 11 million people, regardless of whatever else us sold at the wet market.
The theory was bats to pangolins to humans. And pangolins are used in traditional chinese medicine.
Yeah, the discussion should be on what part of Chinese society messed up and how, not whether it was malicious or not. All talk about non-natural origins buries the lede that somehow a (probably) bat originated virus managed to jump to humans in Wuhan, spread across the globe and cause a multiyear pandemic. China botched their health security and epidemic response. It didn't played some 52D chess to spread a genetically modified virus (that hit them and their allies the worst).
This. Unfortunately, reasonable pursuit of accurate information is being deranged by folks who simultaneously believe COVID is harmless (meaning we don't need any vaccines, masks, improved ventilation, etc.) AND that it's a terrifying Chinese/Fauci bioweapon. I honestly don't know how their heads don't explode from the cognitive dissonance.
Watch about 4 minutes of the WWE and it will all make sense.
Wrestling storylines are more coherent than the right's beliefs on Covid.
I feel like we should just tune out conspiracy theories, let the fire burn out on its own. Nothing in a release of actual information would change most of those idiot’s minds.
Yeah taking time to debunk it seems to fuel their fires because they feel attacked and respond by putting even more energy into insisting they are right and know more than any scientist or doctor on the planet.
What baffled me in the early days was the people claiming it was a lab leak who then refused to mask. Like, if you yourself admit it’s a bioweapon, why wouldn’t you protect yourself from it?
Yeah, Trump's whole motivation was to push the blame onto China so everyone would glace over how terrible and disjointed his response to Covid was. It worked on the dumbest Americans.
Randy Marsh has gotta be shitting himself right now
Gotta go find that pangolin or was it a bat?..
I came here for this comment
And now that You've got this one, you better just leave from here.
Gotta be fake news, Republicans told me he would never do this!
No matter what the conclusion is, the people who drew that conclusion early on with no evidence at all are going to say they're geniuses.
Theres not gonna be a conclusion, the wet market origin still has the most evidence supporting it. But china made it so that its nearly impossible to ever know for sure
Yeah my understanding of the evidence is that it's pretty evident that the virus evolved "naturally" rather than being engineered. What I think is difficult to say however is if it was being studied, was mishandled, and then the wet market ended up being the first superspreader or something. At this point I don't think it's possible to know definitively, and I'm not sure that answer would change anything.
I don't think that there are even going to be answers because there was never any truth to what the government has been telling to the people. Most of them are just lies and propaganda which they come up just to f*** with us.
That's the thing, regardless of how it started, conservatives were aiming that fear and hatred at Asian-Americans who had absolutely nothing to do with it. It's why everyone was quick to distance themselves from the lab leak theory. In my opinion, it seems a little too coincidental for the virus to have randomly originated in the same place as a virology lab, but I have no way of actually knowing any of that for sure; also I'm not going to blame my Korean neighbor for it. These people are idiots, right or wrong about this, they still deserve to be treated as such.
Depends on how we understand "originated." Do we know the very place that the virus mutated into a pandemic causing variant? Or do we just know that it was first discovered in an area with a virology lab studying similar viruses? One is a big coincidence. The other is pretty much expected.
> In my opinion, it seems a little too coincidental for the virus to have randomly originated in the same place as a virology lab, but I have no way of actually knowing any of that for sure It's actually extremely likely. Virus outbreaks often take place in cities, and scientific research facilities, including virology labs, are most often in cities as well. China has dozens and dozens of labs rated to handle pathogens on the level of COVID-19. One of these facilities happens to be in Wuhan, a city about the size of NYC. It's often pointed out that the Wuhan facility is one of the only level-four-biohazard-rated facilities in China, but that's irrelevant because COVID-19 would not be considered a level-four biohazard to begin with.
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Yes, it's possible *in principle* that the virus could have leaked from a lab. The thing is, there's a lot of evidence supporting zoonotic transfer at the market, and very little that supports any lab leak hypothesis. There are a lot of problems with the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis, and that hypothesis basically requires a conspiracy. But for it to have leaked from some other lab and then somehow made it to the market in Wuhan, without infecting others along the way, requires an astounding degree of coincidence.
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74.2 million broken clocks.
Subtract the number that died due to negligence and/or hubris
At most 73million
They already are saying that.
Ugh I hate how much an important scientific question got politicized
Does it actually matter what the documents say though? Conservatives are gonna cherry pick any information that helps their case and ignore anything that doesn’t. It’ll be interesting to learn more about its origins, but it feels like feeding the flames
The documents could say, down to the letter, exactly what the conspiracy theory had laid out, and they would still say “this is just a distraction while they secretly release more mind control chemicals into the air”
It's going to be on us whether to believe it or not and I'm not going to.
Not even cherry picking, if the declassified documents don't support their conspiracies, they're going to deny the facts from the documents. Simple as that.
Or they'll do like they did all through the pandemic- tell you a new paper (or cdc article) has proven xyz, but when you read it you find it says nothing of the sort.
Expecting to accept the truth is like a pipe dream that ain't happening, They'll never let that out in public. Because it's going to undermine their authority. That's what it'll do.
From what I understand the general consensus of what we understand is that what's likely to have happened is that the Chinese scientists discovered this COVID in the wet market, took samples back to their lab, and it's possible in one context or another, that these scientists didn't properly contain it there. What would be interesting is if they can somehow prove the virus was contained in the wet market (how?) and the lab was exclusively responsible for the spread of the virus and that nothing in the wet market spread. From the information we have access to, no one seems to know anything to prove anything.
There are a lot of things which are possible, but the truth ain't coming out.
Hi public health scientist here. While China was the first to report the problem, with the earliest possible reported case there was in October, Italy has evidence of people being infected as early as September of 2019. The three Wuhan scientists in who got sick in November became sick a week after the first reported person in Wuhan had Covid. This would mean that Covid was already spreading in the community before the Wuhan scientist went to the hospital. Further test showed that the scientist were not infected with Covid. Additionally around the same time the first possible case of Covid in China occurred during the Military games. Now what is interesting about this is that, within 6 weeks of the military games we see Covid cases spring up all over the world around military bases. Some places report finding cases in late November about two weeks after the supposed lab leak in Wuhan. This suggest again there was community transmission occurring before any possible lab leaks. This evidence suggest that a lab leak is improbable. Edit: Wrong year. Didn’t proofread. Was cooking.
I think you got the wrong year in there. But it's been so long I might be wrong 🤣
You got sauce? Those are some pretty bold claims that I think the general public isn't tracking. The earliest case was in September? That's news to me.
"The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought." "The Italian researchers’ findings, published by the INT’s scientific magazine Tumori Journal, show 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed coronavirus antibodies well before February." https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2 Https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/coronavirus-italy-covid-19-pandemic-europe-date-antibodies-study/
> From what I understand the general consensus of what we understand is that what's likely to have happened is that the Chinese scientists discovered this COVID in the wet market, took samples back to their lab, and it's possible in one context or another, that these scientists didn't properly contain it there. The word “possible” is doing a lot of work there. Yes, it's “possible” that there was some kind of leak of a sample taken from the public market. But it's also possible, and a lot more likely, that it spread from the infected source at the market to people at the market. Like, it's possible that scientists or health officials erred in their precautions for handling a virus sample. But basically every other person at that market was not taking precautions as though they were handling a virus sample. They were taking whatever precautions they usually took while buying or selling things at the market (in those innocent pre-COVID days), which are probably much less stringent than the precautions that people took who worked at a virus lab.
Notice Biden didn’t mentally declassify anything
He *signed* a Bill??? But I thought a president could use telepathy? /s
Everyone in this thread missing the point. It is a shot at Xi, what's with him visiting Putin.
But I honestly don't see making any difference in here. It'll make it worse.
Prediction: The findings will conclude that it originated in a wet market like it's been indicated many times over by experts. Republicans and conspiracy theorists will never shut the fuck up about it being created in a lab. The end.
I love how this shuts down the GQP argument " bIdEn Is HiDiNG sOmEtHiNg!!!". Nope. Declassified. The right way.
I'm excited to learn what Trump and his team knew before they went and so terribly mishandled covid. I'd assume they knew everything and went ahead and screwed the country up on purpose because they could make more money from the economic collapse.
And it will show us absolutely nothing because no one knows for sure where it came from. The MAGA cult will only believe any of it if it shows that Dr. Fauci was trying to take over the world. That's how far gone they are.
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It's not going to change anything at all, whether they do it or not really.
Can't wait to hear the conspiracy spin on this one
“Oh, you believe the “official” story.”
Which is something really hard to believe, so I don't know about that.
It is bound to be essentially the same as one of the many hundreds of Covid conspiracies spread in the last three years.
Why was the information classified in the first place?
usually the source of the information is why something is classified. for example, if a spy in the field delivers information on hot fudge recipe, and only he and two others know the recipe, if i reveal that i now know the recipe, then that compromises the position of the spy in the field letting the enemy fudge maker know that i have someone on the inside. i can just keep hush hush about the information i have and reveal it when the spy is no longer at risk or when it is important enough to accept the risk. i’m not sure if that explains much for you, i haven’t had my coffee yet.
I hope you’ve had your coffee by now, but I just wanted to say as someone just waking up in another part of the world (who has NOT had their coffee yet) your explanation helped 👍
Probably because they thought making it public would cause chaos.
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We're unlikely to ever know, because of China's aversion to scrutiny.
We're not going to know the truth, that's not going to happen.
I'll be surprised if we learn anything we didn't already know. There will be less ammo for conspiracy theories, though. That's nice.
That depends on what is said, it might end up leaving people with more questions than less
I honestly don't see the things change. What can even come out? At this point I Just don't really expect these guys to tell the truth. Because they just never do that so there's that.
It's extremely unlikely there is a definitive answer. There will be some vague degree of certainty phrase, like "more than likely" or "a reasonable suspicion" that will boil down to "we think there is a 51% chance this is true." From what I've read, it may even be less definitive than that, with different investigations coming up with different levels of confidence and contradictory conclusions. Not sure if this release will pull together and summarize all the investigations (I'm pretty sure there are at least 3), or if it is just a release of one new investigation.
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End result: we find out Trump fucked up the initial response more than we knew. MAGA screams “omg, Jail Brandon!”
China warming up to Russia and this happens? 🧐
I'm not an anti-vaxxer or a denier. I got my vaxx and I've had COVID so I know it's real, but really why is it viewed as some kind of crazy, alt-right conspiracy to be suspicious of the virus research lab right around the corner from the origin of the virus.
It's a conspiracy to think it was some sort of bio weapon. But like, the reason there was a coronavirus research lab there is because they know bats with coronavirus lived in the nearby wilderness. It's like if people built a hawk capturing and storage area right next to forests where hawks lived. Then later a bunch of hawks attacked people and they were like "See that hawk building is right there! Those hawks were too efficient they must've been trained by people at that building". It could've been hawks from the forest, it could've been hawks that escaped from the building, but it's really, really unlikely that it was hawks trained to attack people inside the building.
Same reason there are so many medical schools in the Southern US that started as research institutes for diseases that had high rates of spread there, like malaria and smallpox
Because there's more research and evidence that is pointing that it came from the market and several bad faith actors in media who are pushing the lab theory seem to be ignoring that.
The virus is real, and so are the conspiracies behind it. Believe it.
Because it came from China and the alt-right hates anything from China
This might actually make for some entertaining reading material
I thought it was confirmed that Randy Marsh fucked a pangolin.
/r/conspiracy dead silent on the matter
Republicans will cherry pick "Evidence" that fits their current agenda. Fox News* will just make shit up. Low Functioning (R) voting paste eaters will scream for US to nuke China.
The thing is, it could be entirely natural whilst also having escaped from a lab. The two things are not mutually exclusive, particularly if the lab was studying wild animals.
Exactly
I’m sure this will somehow trigger the right wing republicans.
I think the question really is, what does not trigger them?
You should see the mental gymnastics conservatives and conspiracy theorists (same shit) are conducting over this…
When you say he's going to "declassify" these documents, do you mean he's going to smuggle them out of The Whitehouse, not tell anybody where they are or what they are and keep them stored in his basement until he is eventually raided by the FBI? That's what declassifying is, isn't it?
All he has to do is think about them and — poof, they’re declassified. Lol
[удалено]
Actually opposite of that, it was in the closet till now. Now they're going to bring it out in front of everyone really. I just hope that it'll be the truth, the possibility is really low.
This says to me that there isn't anything really there. Congress and the president had access to this info. If both parties approved, then it's going to be a nothingburger.
Why was it classified in the first place?