RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://Jim%20Geraghty%20https:/www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-chinese-cdc-went-dark-on-their-u-s-counterparts/%0d%0d

You already knew that the Chinese government was spectacularly unhelpful and secretive in the pivotal early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. You probably suspected that any book about the pandemic written by former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb was going to be insightful and illuminating.

But you probably didn’t know how Gottlieb could, in a matter of paragraphs, perfectly illustrate the culpability of the Chinese government in how COVID-19 went from a virus spreading around Wuhan to a global plague that has killed, so far, more than 4.7 million people. Page 48 of Gottlieb’s new book, Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic:

[On] January 1, CDC Director Robert Redfield emailed his Chinese counterpart, Dr. George Fu Gao, a virologist and immunologist who had served as director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017.  After receiving no response, later that day Redfield called Gao to press for more information. By January 3, the two had talked multiple times about the outbreak. The following day, on January 4, Redfield sent Gao another e-mail, again entreating for more information on the situation in Wuhan and requesting that the U.S. CDC staff be given access to the hot zone.

“I would like to offer CDC technical experts in laboratory and epidemiology of respiratory infectious diseases to assist you and China CDC in identification of this unknown and possibly novel pathogen,” Redfield wrote. Gao was emphatic that there was no person-to-person transmission and no evidence of spread within hospitals. Gao’s working theory was that the virus had been spread by contact with an animal, still unidentified, at the Huanan market. All the early cases seemed to be tied to that market. But Gao had sent Redfield a list of the first twenty-seven cases that the Chinese CDC had identified, and Redfield noticed that among them were three clusters where multiple family members were affected – a husband and wife, or a child and a parent. It seemed implausible that to Redfield that multiple members of three different families had all contracted the virus from one zoonotic exposure. Redfield told Gao he was extremely worried this was evidence of human-to-human transmission, urging Gao to look aggressively through local medical admissions for people with matching respiratory symptoms who didn’t identify the food market as a common point of contact.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/progressives-discover-fiscal-restraint-when-it-comes-israel/?utm_source=

Democrats have finally found some spending that they can oppose:

@ryanobles

 A little bit of drama with the Dem passage of the CR/ Debt ceiling in the House. A group of progressives have told leadership they will not vote for the bill if it includes $1b in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome. The flap has led to the Rules Committee to go into recess.

To comprehend just how much contemporary progressives detest Israel, let’s remember that the Iron Dome is a defensive weapon. It has not only saved thousands of Jewish lives from missiles attacks emanating from Islamic terror groups but countless Palestinian lives, as well. Without it, Israel would need to retaliate for strikes with devastating force and be far more proactive in fighting Hamas — and quite likely, be compelled to reinvade Gaza. And yet a faction of Democrats are willing to sink a debt-ceiling hike over our alliance with the only liberal nation in the region.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/09/21/the_stain_of_afghanistan_will_stick_to_biden_146437.html

President Biden’s supporters are hewing to one message since the disastrous Afghan exit: “Voters won’t remember it.” That analysis—or hope, really—could well be wrong because the evacuation left Biden with so many problems. None are going away soon.

The most consequential is that many independent voters are deciding that Joe Biden is simply incompetent. This “buyer’s remorse” is new, and it’s growing. Although Democratic voters are still backing the president, he is now deeply underwater with independents, both on overall “favorability” and on his handling of several high-profile issues. A Quinnipiac Poll, conducted Sept. 10-13, showed only 34% of independents approved his job performance, while 52% disapproved.

Those negative views will harden unless the White House and its media allies can upend them quickly. To do that, they must turn attention away from the cumulating failures (Afghanistan, illegal immigration, the COVID pandemic, and inflation) and achieve some big legislative wins that help voters in tangible ways. Biden is counting on two mammoth stimulus bills to accomplish that, but success is far from certain. The larger one might not pass, partly because it will fuel inflation and partly because it requires Democrats to support large tax increases. Moreover, the projected benefits, if they materialize, won’t happen for a year or two. The costs will come sooner: higher taxes and perhaps higher inflation and economic sluggishness.