90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, July 31, 2023

In testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Thursday, a doctor from the University of Washington said that Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates subjected Americans “to the humiliations of forced medical treatments,” were “scientifically inconsistent and illogical,” and “an insult to our American foundation of freedom.”

Dr. Kevin Bardosh, an affiliate assistant professor, cited an academic paper he published in the BMJ in March of 2023 on COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults which found vaccine mandates on college campuses to be inappropriate and unethical because it likely resulted in a net harm to young people.

“In our paper, we combined empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis,” Bardosh explained. “We estimated that to prevent one COVID-19 hospitalization over a 6-month period, between 31,000–42,000 young adults aged 18–29 years would have to receive a third mRNA vaccine,” he continued. “But this would mean that for each hospitalization prevented with these booster mandates, at least 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines would occur, including 1-5 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalization).”

Three other witnesses testified before the Committee hearing titled “Examining the Science and Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates,” including Danielle Runyan, the Senior Counsel for First Liberty, a legal organization that is representing many U.S. service members who lawfully objected to the required injections, and Allison Williams, a sports reporter who was fired from ESPN after 10 years of employment because she refused to get the jab. Williams is now a reporter for Fox Sports.

Dr. John Lynch, Associate Professor of Medicine and Allergy and Infectious Diseases at University of Washington School of Medicine, defended the jabs as a witness for the House minority. “COVID-19 vaccines provide significant protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Lynch testified, citing CDC data.

Bardosh said his paper concluded that university booster mandates are unethical because the risks outweigh the benefits for young people.

1. Are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit
assessment for this age group;
2. May result in a net harm to healthy young adults;
3. Are not proportionate: expected harms do not outweigh their public health
benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against
transmission;
4. Violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are
not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes; and
5. May result in wider social harms, such as losing educational opportunities
for those who do not comply.

Bardosh also cited an important and widely read paper from late 2021, also published in BMJ, titled: The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy: why mandates, passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good.

“In the first paper, written in late 2021, I and a group of scholars from Johns Hopkins, Oxford, Harvard and elsewhere outlined a set of 12 reasons why the coercive approach to COVID vaccination policy would ultimately be both counterproductive and damaging to public health and society,” Bardosh testified. “We based these ideas on the existing literature at the time, with nearly 150 citations.”

We divided these 12 reasons into 4 categories:

Visage à trois #1588

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1244

Visage à trois #1587

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1244

Senator Uses Freedom Center’s Expose of Quotas for White Male Officers to Challenge Joint Chiefs Chair Nominee

Biden's nominee wanted a 43% quota for white male Air Force officers.

In May, Front Page Magazine broke the story that Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr., who had been put forward by Biden as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had signed off on a 43% quota for white male officers.

As the investigative piece warned Brown’s quotas limit the number of white officers to 67% and cut white men down to 43%.

“The Air Force officer corps is currently 77% white: getting it down to 67%, a reduction of 10%, would require serious effort to purge white officers and bar the doors to any new ones. Reducing the number of white men in the officer corps to a minority, 43%, would cripple the service and wipe out generations of talent: especially when 86% of pilots are white men. What do you do with those 86% of white male pilots?”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center had led the way into investigating military wokeness as part of its Disloyal Military project which has generated two breakthrough pamphlets, “Disloyal: How The Military Brass Is Betraying Our Country” and “How Obama And Biden Destroyed The Greatest Military The World Has Ever Seen”.

Since Brown’s nomination became official, Shillman Journalism Fellow Daniel Greenfield has made a tour of podcasts and radio shows urging Senate members to challenge the nominee on these racist quotas.

At the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo) challenged Brown by asking him point blank, “Do we have too many white officers in the Air Force?”

When Brown tried to dodge the question while claiming that he just wanted the most qualified officers, Sen. Schmitt cited the August memo that had been uncovered by the Front Page Magazine investigation.

“That answer is not consistent with your August 9th memo,” Sen. Schmitt challenged, “that there should be a reduction of about 9% of the white officers. That’s a reduction of 5,400. 5,400 too many white officers.”

Brown argued that the numbers were fair because they were based on national “demographics”.

“Your story about wanting to be the best pilot in the Air Force regardless of race, that is what the military is supposed to be,” Sen. Schmitt told Brown. “It’s this great meritocracy”.

But the senator from Missouri argued that under Brown, the Air Force had lost its way.

“Somehow, some way we ended up in a place where a general in the Air Force is advocating for racial quotas,” Sen. Schmitt. “And I just think that’s wrong.”

While the Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to move Brown’s nomination forward, it goes to the Senate where members will have the opportunity to take a stand against the...