That was long past overdue, and Purity tests are never a good idea

Happy Monday! This weekend, I was on on stage at a private event with Robert Kennedy Jr. Jill and I met with our good friend Bobby, met some grand people at the tabletop discussion and are now home. I am working on the book this week, but the tyranny of the urgent keeps getting in the way.

Today, I am sharing some of the news stories and essays that have had me thinking hard this past week.

The big news - just out!

Well that is… FAUCI IS OUT - come December! (Merry Christmas?). One year after my infamous prediction on the Laura Ingram show regarding Omicron. Which, given Fauci’s likely accrued vaca time - probably means he is all but out the door now.

Why the sudden rush?

Statement by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career.

The Washington Examiner published this op-ed this morning. The gist of the story is along the lines of what I was writing last week:

The CDC needs new leadership, not reorganization (by the editorial board)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky admitted this week that her agency made “some pretty dramatic public mistakes” handling the coronavirus, promising to “pivot” the organization so that it can better provide information to ordinary people.

But communication was never the CDC’s real problem. That was its arrogant and politicized leadership, which was unable to tell the truth. That is why no one trusts the CDC anymore or cares much for its guidance, whatever it happens to be. The cure begins with Walensky’s resignation.

One of the more interesting bits of news over the last week is that Public Health leadership and associated community are turning on one of their own leaders. Dr. Leana Wen (CNN health policy analyst) actually has the nerve to suggest that COVID-19 is here to stay. That it is time to open up schools, end mask and vaccine mandates. For those that don’t know, Dr. Wen is also the former public health commissioner of Baltimore and past president of Planned Parenthood.

For the sin of recognizing reality and advocating a return to normalcy, there is an online petition to have Dr. Wen taken off the speaker list at this year's American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting.

The petition link is here. This is the beginning of the petition

We are demanding our colleagues and fellow leaders in public health to reconsider and replace Dr. Wen with someone whose work is consistent with anti-racist, anti-eugenicist public health practices and community health

Through her platform on news outlets and social media, Dr. Wen has promoted unscientific, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, in a recent article, Dr. Wen suggested that infection should be accepted as a “new normal.” In another article, she writes about how learning loss is a threat to children from parents who want to keep their kids safe; despite the fact that as of 8/6/2022, 1,376 children have died from COVID-19 infection. In yet another article, she advocated for “hot vax spring,” suggesting - while still in an omicron surge - that municipalities lift all protections except vaccination. Her recommendations also included the unscientific and nonsensical suggestion of designating a section of planes to wearing masks in response to an airborne pathogen.

Whoa! Stop and think about this. A liberal public health spokesperson, known for her pragmatic style but who had previously advocated for rather extreme lockdown/vaccination measures and policies, is being outed as “unscientific, nonsensical, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical” - and they basically also call her “racist” - holding “eugenicist public health” practice beliefs!

Oh, just so we are clear, the petition also implies that the Supreme Court Roe V. Wade is also her fault. The petitions goes on to state that many employees under her at planned parenthood were unhappy with her management style and didn’t like that she wouldn’t politicize abortion. You can’t make this stuff up.

Yep- I had to read that portion of the petition again. The petitioners blame Dr. Wen for the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. Reading from the petition:

During her tenure as President of PPFA, Dr. Wen was directly responsible for creating and enabling abusive conditions under which staffers left in mass exodus. As we sit at a moment where abortion access is under direct threat, with multiple states banning abortion with limited exception, it is important to point out that Dr. Wen’s leadership failure and unwillingness to address abortion’s political nature empowered attacks on abortion to escalate to the point we see today.

Is all this anger in the petition because Dr. Wen is now advocating for a fairly moderate points of view on how to handle public health and policy for COVID-19 going forward?

Or is this really about finding a scapegoat for the Roe V. Wade decision? Did these petitioners actually call Dr. Wen the nonsensical one? Pot calling kettle black!

There are currently 620 signatories. Many are from prominent positions in academia and government. The names are all listed at the end of the petition. Personally, I had an interesting time reading the names and job titles. I suggest y’ll taking a look and see who might be in your region - these are our public health officials folks. Making decisions on how to handle COVID-19, Monkeypox and the next new pandemic.

Of course, this all fits into Mass Formation model of crowd formation -where eventually the puritans turn on each other. As no one can be “pure enough” to meet the standards imposed by the group.

Speaking of Mass Formation - I was searching on the term yesterday to write the above and discovered that Google has played with the algorithms for the term again. Most of the articles identified by a Google search were written during January, 2022 , and have been placed above any real analysis of Dr. Desmet’s work or research/news articles written after that time (when the corporate press were reacting to my Joe Rogan interview). Articles defending the term and body of academic work are not listed. The Epoch Times has written many articles on Mass Formation and those also do not pull up in a generic google search on “mass formation”. In fact, Dr. Desmet’s new academic book on the subject isn’t even in the search results. Just articles defaming me and delegitimizing the 100s of legitimate news articles and research tomes on the subject

Of course, there are also the over 100 million views of the Joe Rogan interview. But this episode also does not come up in any search for “mass formation.”

One might say: censorship at its finest.

The thing is, Google always has the last laugh because they can skew the results over time - and there isn’t a darn thing you and I can do about it! They re-write history in real time by controlling what information you are allowed to read.

Of note - when I spoke in Long Island yesterday, it appeared to me that the audience accurately reflected the demographics of the town of Huntington - which is a liberal, wealthy burb of Long Island. But this was also a group open to listening to Robert Kennedy and I. Many had vaccine injured children, or had been vaccine injured themselves. So, in the midst of the discussion with Robert Kennedy, I asked the group this question:

“Who has heard of the Trusted News Initiative, otherwise known as TNI?

To my shock, maybe 2% of the audience raised their hands…

Folks - it may seem like we are winning, but we have a long way to go yet in reaching the “persuadable middle.”

Cancel culture is everywhere. Even supreme court justices aren’t exempt.

Tennessee college alumni lobby to remove Supreme Court Justice Barrett from school's 'hall of fame'

The Tennessee college alumni group said that Barrett is a major threat to 'fundamental rights'

An alumni group at Rhodes College created a petition for the school to remove Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett from the school's "Hall of Fame" because of her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Or course - petitions these days just get crazier and crazier. Here is one:

Petition launches supporting policy allowing biological males to apply to an elite all-girls school

A petition supporting a controversial policy at an elite all-girls school to allow anyone who identifies as female to apply regardless of gender identity has garnered hundreds of signatures.

Last week, in an email to parents, Harpeth Hall in Nashville, Tenn., announced a new "Gender Diversity Philosophy" which would allow "any student who identifies as a girl" to apply to the school.

On Thursday, the school paused the policy after facing backlash from members of the community. A letter from parents, alumnae and donors was then sent to the Board of Trustees calling for the resignation of all those involved in implementing the policy.

This opinion piece below captures the feeling that the country is slipping into an authoritarian regime - run by the administrative state. Where censorship is a step away for anyone not hypnotized by the current propaganda

All Republicans are now terrorists (Washington Times)

Democrats and the mainstream media have gone full Orwellian

Last week, Financial Times Associate Editor Edward Luce tweeted that Republicans are the most “dangerous” political force in the world, bar none. “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world,” he said, and “I have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.” Former CIA Director Michael Hayden chimed in immediately and said, “I agree.”

This past Tuesday, Democrat adviser Kurt Bardella called all Republicans a “domestic terrorist cell.” MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross agreed and said there should be no distinction between Republicans and “right-wing extremists.” At the same time, Peter Wehner, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, likened the Republican Party to a “dagger pointed at the throat of American democracy.” All this while the FBI Director Christopher Wray added that any American flying the Gadsden — “Don’t Tread On Me” — flag is suspect of violent extremism.  

Does anyone except me hear the ghost of George Orwell laughing right now? Below is a nice essay lays some of out what Jill and I have come to believe. I love how the author doesn’t throw out all of the great inroads that this society has made in treating people equally.

Left. Right. Blue. Red. It doesn’t matter. These kinds of statements from main-stream and state-sponsored media sources, as well as a former director of the CIA should cause everyone to pay attention. Labelling a large fraction of the US population as terrorists - which is not only dehumanizing, but also allows for censoring, defaming and slandering tactics by the media and government.

Could it be possible that some younger people, the next generation, might turn back to finding partnerships - marriage at a time in life when it is easier to bond? To find “true” love? To come to believe in love and marriage again?

That they may turn away from the pernicious belief that having many relationships over a short period of time early in adulthood - is a good thing? Personally, I believe that every person of age gets to make their own decisions on sex and marriage, but I believe that having lots of anonymized sex partners does not make for a happy life. Particularly for women, as discussed in the essay below.

I'm 30. The Sexual Revolution Shackled My Generation.

Sexual symmetry between men and women was, is, and always will be a lie.

This essay is at times, difficult to read but well worth it. An except:

And, above all, listen to your mother. In 2021, a TikTok video by a young American woman named Abby went viral. In the video, Abby tells the camera:

“I, like many other college students, am someone who is entangled in hook-up culture, and often hook-up culture makes it difficult for me to determine whether or not what I’m doing is good for me and kind to myself. Very often, as women, we are led astray from what we actually deserve. So here’s what I’ve been doing lately . . . ”

Then she pulls up on screen a series of childhood photos of herself and explains that the men she’s hooked up with in the past have often made her feel as though she’s undeserving, not only of love but also of basic respect. So she’s trying to remind herself of her worth as a person by playing the role of mother to her inner child. “Am I OK with that for her?” she asks tearfully, gesturing at her younger self in the photo. “Would I let her be a late-night, drunk second option? Would I let this happen to her?” She shakes her head, weeping. “From a third-person, caretaker point of view, I would never let any of this stuff happen to her.”

Abby is trying to mother herself, though she isn’t quite sure how to do it. And the thousands of young women in her replies are trying to do the same (“I’m sobbing”; “i rlly needed this, thank you”; “this just changed my life”). They’ve been denied the guidance of mothers, not because their actual mothers are unwilling to offer it, but because of a matricidal impulse in liberal feminism that cuts young women off from the “problematic” older generation. This means not only that they are cut off from the voices of experience, but—more importantly—they are also cut off from the person who loves them most in the world. Feminism needs to rediscover the mother, in every sense.

Until we do, each individual woman will have to learn on her own the lie of the promise of sexual liberation—the lie that tells us, as Andrea Dworkin phrased it, that “fucking per se is freedom per se.”

It was a lie all along. It’s time, at last, to say so.

The essay above argues that even young women are searching beyond feminism, beyond the cultural norms being promoted for their generation. That it is time for a change in society that puts many features feminism, as well as traditional family values in a place of prominence in the hearts and souls of young Americans.

Here is the thing. Morals and values matter. This is why so many people are leaving the Democratic party. Because the Democratic party has left them. The arm of the progressive party has come to dominate the ideology of the left - even “center-left.” There is no longer room for Democrats who hold traditional values.

These values that believe in family, freedom, a smaller safety net - where government is not intruding on their daily lives. Traditional values that respect human life, the role of the family.

Most people have MODERATE views. Most people in the USA still live and abide by Judeo-Christian beliefs - whether or not they go to church on Sunday.

Is there a home for such people in the left or right nexus of our political parties?

I believe that many of us are yearning for center ground. Traditional values.

We all want strong, healthy, morally grounded, stable families and lives. We want our families and communities to practice and respect a strong work ethic. We want a world for which entertainment isn’t the only thing that matters in their lives.

We don’t want purity tests on anti or pro abortion politics. We don’t want purity tests on transgenders on sports teams or purity tests on gender affirming surgeries for children. We want our children protected from overly sexualized and graphic content. We don’t want public health policies grounded in authoritarianism. We don’t want our government buckling under totalitarian globalists.

We don’t want black/white binary logic. The world is more complicated than that.

This is why list of people who identify as “independents” keeps getting longer.

We want common sense policies and politics.

It is time to some real leaders to emerge to take us back to the traditional values that made this country great. Those values once resided in both parties. They need to return again.

We need leaders to guide our nation back to a middle of the road, a common sense world again.