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Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

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Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#51

Post by robswc »

hnbad wrote: post #44
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the people that the story targets, even if there may be that misunderstanding, does that make it any much better?

I'd wager the group of people outraged hearing that some person who is not even a teacher is invited to hand out veiny rubber dongs to their children is larger than the group of people outraged hearing that a sexual health educator passed around something that looks more like a smooth plastic carrot (and collected it before leaving). So yeah, the difference matters and leaving this open to interpretation aids embelli…

>I'd wager the group of people outraged hearing that some person who is not even a teacher is invited to hand out veiny rubber dongs to their children is larger than the group of people outraged hearing that a sexual health educator passed around something that looks more like a smooth plastic carrot (and collected it before leaving).

Hardly a wager when the former population would undoubtedly be included in the latter.

Why does anyone need to be coming into the class room to pass around butt-plugs and dildos for kids to play with?

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#52

Post by hotpotamus »

fidgewidge wrote: post #41
hotpotamus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You insult the intelligence of anyone to suggest that Project Veritas does not have a right-wing political agenda. Whether it is "far" to the right, I don't know. I'd certainly be curious to see the videos if they were to turn their spycraft/journalism (I'll admit there may be some overlap in those) on powerful right-wing figures, but we both know that will not be happening. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a va…

No insult to anyone's intelligence intended, because it feels actually the other way around. This supposed far right agenda is asserted but never proven. It's just claimed that it must exist. Here is their agenda in their own words: "Project Veritas journalists working undercover on their own or by, with and through idealistic insiders bring to the American people the corrupt private truths hidden behind the walls of…

Would you then classify Epstein as on the right? Certainly he had some power, but I’d classify him more as a toady of people like my ultimate boss for a time, Leon Black, the president of Apollo Private Equity. My own experience with these people would call them extremely right wing - I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start. I wonder how you would classify such people and what you imagine the agenda of the right wing to be.

Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right? I would think their success in re-shaping our federal judiciary where laws are actually made. I have not heard of these institutions like follow the sciencism or anything like that, although I will trust your characterization of them as being of the left, I haven’t noticed any influence on my local laws, but as a resident of Southern Texas, I have certainly noticed the right wing influence on local laws, most notably the medical procedures that the women around me are legally allowed to undergo.

I suspect that your example would more be seen as an investigation into ABC (and likely used as an avatar for the “mainstream media”) by the people carrying it out.

Nymag actually had an interesting article on Project Veritas recently that you may want to peruse. Apparently they were after Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary but it caused them some issues. That said, it sounded like they already had some problems brewing before then.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#53

Post by fidgewidge »

hotpotamus wrote: post #33
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you watch the original video, he said that he speculated that’s what happened in Wuhan, and that there had better not be more outbreaks. Just the fact that a Pfizer employee would make a serious comment like that is terrifying and should spark investigations into that lab immediately. Also, there should be investigations to our pandemic leadership for so heavily insisting that it almost certainly was not a l…

I’d say as a rule, I think much more federal regulation of industry in the US (presuming you don’t mean the Wuhan lab) would be nice to have, but it seems pretty unpopular. If you do mean the Wuhan lab, then I gotta say that Xi seems like an even tougher sell on the idea. As far as the whole leak thing goes, I always assumed it was just like every plague since antiquity; not a lab leak or creation (I think one of the…

It's unpopular for the reasons that the Pfizer executive helpfully spells out - regulators are useless because governments don't pay them enough, so make all their decisions with one eye towards a much better paying job in sector they're regulating. You get the appearance of regulation without it actually having teeth.

It's an open secret that this is a problem everywhere, not just medical regulation. The revolving door was once an issue that the left campaigned on, in fact, but you don't hear much about it any more. Probably because there's no obvious fix beyond ensuring that pay for regulators keeps up with whatever comp the private sector is willing to offer, which is the sort of solution that's not politically popular on that side of the aisle. Also it's hard. The value of less aggressive regulation to companies like Pfizer is very high. Governments meanwhile are ideologically optimized to hire more people at lower wages, not fewer people at higher wages. The whole culture of pay more to hire the best that you find in places like the tech industry just doesn't happen there, and in the USA there's even a rule limiting pay to be lower than the President (which mysteriously doesn't apply to Fauci, wonder how that one works).

You could also try hacks like laws forbidding regulators from (re)joining the industry they regulate, but that'd just make the job even less attractive and ensure that whoever the government does end up hiring are the industry rejects, who will either have an axe to grind or simply not be able to keep up with the technical issues, making them easy to bamboozle.

There's not really a great solution here, beyond maybe just being realistic about what government regulation is capable of. Private sector regulators is also a possibility. Uber is a taxi regulator of sorts, but a much more effective and innovative one, and one whose staff can't be bought off with the carrot of luxury jobs in the taxi sector.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#54

Post by lern_too_spel »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #25
bitwize wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that Project Veritas has a far-right agenda. It's that they lie, and publish heavily edited footage taking people's statements way out of context, in order to push that agenda. They single-handedly destroyed the reputation of ACORN in the USA with their deceptive techniques. Furthermore, they conduct surreptitious recording of their interviewees, which is illegal in some places they operate (a felony in…

[flagged]

Legitimate journalists issue corrections. Not Project Veritas.

The reason your comment history shows you to believe in nefarious vaccine conspiracy theories is that you get your news from sources who do not issue corrections and instead continue to lie after they know they are wrong.

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/12019/james-o%E2%80%99k...

https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/project-veritas-loses-defama...

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/08/project-veritas-not-only...

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/08/09/project-veritas-ex-coo-...

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#55

Post by Erem »

fidgewidge wrote: post #41
hotpotamus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You insult the intelligence of anyone to suggest that Project Veritas does not have a right-wing political agenda. Whether it is "far" to the right, I don't know. I'd certainly be curious to see the videos if they were to turn their spycraft/journalism (I'll admit there may be some overlap in those) on powerful right-wing figures, but we both know that will not be happening. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a va…

No insult to anyone's intelligence intended, because it feels actually the other way around. This supposed far right agenda is asserted but never proven. It's just claimed that it must exist. Here is their agenda in their own words: "Project Veritas journalists working undercover on their own or by, with and through idealistic insiders bring to the American people the corrupt private truths hidden behind the walls of…

> Here is their agenda in their own words

Despite the group's self description, Veritas are not (only?) journalists, they are also a political spying operation.

But don't trust me on that -- instead review the submitted evidence that convinced the DC Circuit Court to permit describing the group in those exact terms. Start at page 14 of Democracy Partners v. Veritas (PDF):

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_17-cv-010...

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#56

Post by hotpotamus »

fidgewidge wrote: post #53
hotpotamus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say as a rule, I think much more federal regulation of industry in the US (presuming you don’t mean the Wuhan lab) would be nice to have, but it seems pretty unpopular. If you do mean the Wuhan lab, then I gotta say that Xi seems like an even tougher sell on the idea. As far as the whole leak thing goes, I always assumed it was just like every plague since antiquity; not a lab leak or creation (I think one of the…

It's unpopular for the reasons that the Pfizer executive helpfully spells out - regulators are useless because governments don't pay them enough, so make all their decisions with one eye towards a much better paying job in sector they're regulating. You get the appearance of regulation without it actually having teeth. It's an open secret that this is a problem everywhere, not just medical regulation. The revolving d…

Then you do not believe the US government is capable of regulating the scientific research of its own citizens? I often see this thought applied to 3D printing of small arms, and I tend to agree that it’s quite problematic. I see no reason to limit this thinking to small arms though - as technology advances, what’s to stop individuals from doing their own viral research and development? If the government is incapable of stopping them, it’s probably worth thinking about your own contingency plans; it’s something I do.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#57

Post by fidgewidge »

hotpotamus wrote: post #52
fidgewidge wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No insult to anyone's intelligence intended, because it feels actually the other way around. This supposed far right agenda is asserted but never proven. It's just claimed that it must exist. Here is their agenda in their own words: "Project Veritas journalists working undercover on their own or by, with and through idealistic insiders bring to the American people the corrupt private truths hidden behind the walls of…

Would you then classify Epstein as on the right? Certainly he had some power, but I’d classify him more as a toady of people like my ultimate boss for a time, Leon Black, the president of Apollo Private Equity. My own experience with these people would call them extremely right wing - I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable st…

Don't know much if anything about Epstein so couldn't try to classify his politics.

"I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start"

We are likely talking at cross purposes then because that's the exact opposite of what I consider right wing. Abolishing democracy and becoming dictator for life is something associated with hard left revolutionaries. Stalin, Mao, North Korea that sort of thing. To me right wing means pro market, pro capitalist, pro democracy, small government, it's all about decentralization of power. Libertarian stuff. If they'd really want to abolish government and take over they'd be the pastiche of WEF-attending elitist globalists, surely.

"Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right?"

Maybe? I don't think Trump had politics clearly aligned with any party. He used to be a Democrat and sort of took over the GOP from the outside didn't he. Plenty of never trumpers who were also Republicans. Don't know anything about McConnell, not from the USA, that's too detailed for my knowledge.

Flicking through their results pages, there's one investigation they did into poor conditions in border detention centers. Isn't that normally a topic for the left in the US? I thought the US right normally just want more border enforcement and don't care much about how illegal immigrants are treated.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#58

Post by fidgewidge »

hotpotamus wrote: post #56
fidgewidge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unpopular for the reasons that the Pfizer executive helpfully spells out - regulators are useless because governments don't pay them enough, so make all their decisions with one eye towards a much better paying job in sector they're regulating. You get the appearance of regulation without it actually having teeth. It's an open secret that this is a problem everywhere, not just medical regulation. The revolving d…

Then you do not believe the US government is capable of regulating the scientific research of its own citizens? I often see this thought applied to 3D printing of small arms, and I tend to agree that it’s quite problematic. I see no reason to limit this thinking to small arms though - as technology advances, what’s to stop individuals from doing their own viral research and development? If the government is incapable…

I don't know any more if any government can do that. A few years ago I thought it was possible and normal. Now? We saw things like vaccine approvals based on 8 mice all of whom got COVID anyway, that doesn't sound much like what I thought regulators would do. But it makes sense given the Pfizer guys comments about revolving doors. You can suspect it but hearing it from the horses mouth is something else.

You're so right about viral engineering being done by individuals. I don't know what can be done about that. I guess it depends a lot on how many dual uses some of the ingredients have, how much the tech can be controlled. Sort of like how you can stop people doing stuff with uranium on their own, but not mixing up fertilizer bombs. But presumably it's easier to stop large companies and government labs doing this stuff, so why not start there? Today we fail even at that.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#59

Post by fidgewidge »

Erem wrote: post #55
fidgewidge wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No insult to anyone's intelligence intended, because it feels actually the other way around. This supposed far right agenda is asserted but never proven. It's just claimed that it must exist. Here is their agenda in their own words: "Project Veritas journalists working undercover on their own or by, with and through idealistic insiders bring to the American people the corrupt private truths hidden behind the walls of…

> Here is their agenda in their own words Despite the group's self description, Veritas are not (only?) journalists, they are also a political spying operation. But don't trust me on that -- instead review the submitted evidence that convinced the DC Circuit Court to permit describing the group in those exact terms. Start at page 14 of Democracy Partners v. Veritas (PDF): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-…

Yeah that's interesting but seems like an incredibly technical reading of the term "political spying operation". They argue that it's an operation because it was planned. It was spying because the undercover journalist was recording everything secretly. And it was political because:

> Defendants make clear that they researched plaintiffs and developed the plan for this operation in response to plaintiffs’ activities related to supposed voter fraud and campaign events, supporting the “political” nature of their conduct

That's pretty nuts, saying that investigating voting fraud is "political". Any police force that enforces ballot laws would then be considered political too? They seem to be using it to mean "something related to politics" instead of the more obvious meaning of politically biased.

They also make a big deal out of some passages from a book O'Keefe wrote where he compares an undercover journalist living out a character to the same strategy as used by Soviet spies. Any undercover investigation could be described as spying in this way.

Doesn't seem very convincing overall? I can think of lots of investigations by big media orgs that could be described exactly the same way. The UK had one called cash for questions some years ago where politicians were recorded accepting bribes. Guess that was also a political spying operation lol.

Re: Pfizer Responds to Covid Gain of Function Research Claims

#60

Post by Erem »

fidgewidge wrote: post #14
Digory wrote: post #6

This is responding to an undercover video by the activists at Project Veritas. They have released a video that appears to show a Pfizer director saying they are mutating new COVID lines for vaccine purposes.

It actually does show that, albeit he says they're considering/planning on doing it, not doing it right now. The clips where he talks about it are long and with plenty of context, the man in question does indeed have the title Veritas claimed for him (although they are now trying to scrub his internet presence), and when he was confronted with the recordings he freaked out and attacked the reporters. On every thread…

Readers in the thread should reference a few relevant resources before accepting the "honest, hard-nosed journalism" description of project Veritas proposed by fidgewidge.

Consider that they are also a political spying organization, as successfully argued in front of the DC Circuit Court (link at bottom)

Taking into account the court's findings and other easily available material like Wikipedia it beggars belief to include this group in the echelons of great investigative journalism and should cast skepticism on any "reporting" they release.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_17-cv-010...

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