Nope, Cardinals fans, Wainwright wasn't robbed of a Cy; nor would he have been a HOFer, Best Fans in Baseball

The claim I saw on Twitter, from some "Best Fans in Baseball" groupies responding to Buster Olney, was that Adam Wainwright would have been in the Hall of Fame if not for injuries, and that part of why he lacks a HOF case beyond that is that he was robbed of the 2009 Cy Young.

The latter, first.

There ARE legit cases of Cy Young or MVP robbery.

This ain't one of them.

Winner Tim Lincecum was a full WAR point ahead of Waino. And, given that WAR can be accurate within half a point, you'd have to assume both that Lil Timmy was too high AND Waino was too low. Anyway, I pointed that out to the BFIB Twitterer, who irked me because he said "robbed."

Had he said something like, "You could make a case that Adam Wainwright should have won the 2009 Cy Young award," different story. But, he said, and I quote, "robbed." I'm not going to embed, to spare him the BFIB jokes, which I as a Cards fan but not a total homer will laugh along with at times.

Either he or one other person on the thread said that Waino lost votes cuz Chris Carpenter. Things like that might have been true more than 20 years ago. They might be more true even today on the MVP. But, each pitching game is separate, unless it's a starter and a closer from the same team battling for the Cy.

Plus, the first dude said, "WAR doesn't mean much to me- especially for pitchers."

My response to that?

No, WAR is not perfect, but, in an actually good piece at Red Satan, I quote:

The goal of WAR is to give the most complete sense of a player's value to his team, and it's perhaps the best piece of data to compare the greatness of one player to the next.

There you go. Couldn't have said it better myself. Now, get off my lawn.

Besides, there were FOUR pitchers, not two, bunched within half a WAR of each other. Javier Vazquez was fourth in the voting and Dan Haren was fifth.

And, by either sabermetric or non-sabermetric stats, I can make a case for most of them.

Lincecum led the league in K's. Special pleader, what the hell, Dean Hartmann, I'm naming your ass — and for my "Unknown" trolling comments on this piece of mine about the Veterans Committee's recent fuck-up? I said "ass"; so sue me — said K's don't mean much to him. So, rejects WAR, but also rejects a non-sabermetric stat. Okayyyy ... (Timmeh also led in complete games and shutouts among non-sabermetric stats, and FIP among sabermetrics.)

Carp led in both ERA and ERA+. Good argument there.

Haren led in both K/BB ratio and WHIP.

Waino? Led in wins, definitely, as we all know, not directly tied to pitching prowess, and innings pitched, nice but not huge.

Vazquez doesn't really jump out for anything.

No, Timmeh earned the win.

As for injury? He missed all of 2011, near peak. Give Waino 6 WAR. For the most of 2015 he missed? Four WAR. For the most of 2018? Two more. That's 12 WAR. Added to his actual 44.5, he's at 56.5. Let's say I was 2.5 WAR stingy. That's still less than 60.

And? Other pitchers have had plenty of injuries and better track records. Near-peer Clayton Kershaw is a derp. Sandy Koufax from the past. Dizzy Dean from the Cards' way-back past. Kershaw broke 7 WAR three times. Koufax did it four times, including two 10-WAR seasons. Dean did it three times, including approximately 9 WAR in his 30-win year.

Waino never had a 7-WAR year and never knocked my socks off. On non-sabermetric stats worth something, he once led in complete games and twice led or tied in shutouts. And, he's a non-horrible batter for a pitcher, which is where he gets 4 WAR.

Or, another way to put it? B-Ref lists Roy Oswalt as his best comp, and that sounds about exactly right.

I told the group of Tweeters not to @ me, too, saying I was a long-time fan who was at the game when Glenn Brummer stole home. Bryan Bauer decided to be a clown anyway.

Libertarians sue Texas again over election law; Greens AWOL

From an edited version of a Libertarian Party of Texas news release:

The Libertarian Party of Texas, along with several individual plaintiffs, represented by Gordon, Arata, Montgomery, Barnett, McCollam, Duplantis & Eagan, LLC filed suit against the Texas Secretary of State, John B. Scott and Texas Deputy Secretary of State Jose A. Esparaza. The complaint asserts that Section 181.0311 of the Texas Election Code requiring third party candidates to pay a fee, or submit a petition in lieu thereof, in order to be considered for nomination is unconstitutional and infringes on the rights to free speech, free association, and equal protection.

In Texas, filing fees paid by Republican and Democrat candidates are used to offset the cost of primary elections, which are largely paid from the General Fund, utilizing taxpayer dollars. In contrast, ballot-qualified Libertarian Party and Green Party candidates do not participate in primaries, and instead participate in Party-funded nominating conventions. Additionally, fees paid by primary party candidates go to their Parties, while non-primary candidates are required to submit payment to the Secretary of State, thus to the general fund.

“The passage of H.B. 2504 in 2019 began the Texas Legislature's attack on free and fair elections and we are taking the necessary steps to protect voters’ rights. By passing S.B. 2093 this year and continuing their war against competition at the polls, while simultaneously claiming to want real election reform, Republicans and Democrats once again prove they are more than willing to work together so long as it ensures voters only have the two of them to choose between. Electing our representatives is a fundamental practice of liberty and to deny Texas voters a choice at the ballot box is antithetical to representative democracy,” Libertarian Party of Texas Chair Whitney Bilyeu said in conjunction with the filing of the suit.

The state’s claimed legitimate interest in only having candidates who’ve demonstrated a modicum of support appear on the ballot is already met for those applying through a ballot-qualified convention party, Nathan Moxley of the Libertarian Party of Texas said in a news release.

Additionally, third parties may only place one candidate on the ballot for each race, thus eliminating any danger of ballot overcrowding. Plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief and an overturning of this unconstitutional legislation.

OK, my further take.

Given that Bilyeu lives in Harris County, heartland of Texas Greens (the fact that Greens are thin on the ground in Travis County says something both about the Green Party and about environmentalism there), surely some Greens know about this. They may have known when it was filed. It's sad that this isn't a "bipartisan third party" filing. I assume that Greens don't even have a friendly brief of support filed. Of course, as I Tweeted snarkily yesterday, I'm talking about a state party that has had two Tweets in the past month.

The suit is here.

That said, re HB 2504? Living in Drew Springer's district, I'm quite familiar with its ramifications, as well as with the unified Libertarian-Green federal lawsuit over that and related issues, which is part of why I don't like that this one isn't, so far at least, "bipartisan." I also, in relation to my non-snarky snark, and the "two Tweets" (and nothing on the Texas Greens website) blogged a couple of months after the federal suit about the Texas Greens' disorganization at that time, among other things. That old shibboleth/bugaboo of "consensus" (a wrong turn that may or may not be over-extrapolating from the Ten Key Values, which don't mention the idea) continues to bite. I've blogged before about the overinterpretation of the "decentralization" issue. You know who else has required 2/3 supermajorities? The old cloture standard of the U.S. Senate. The Democratic Party on presidential nominations until 1936. In both cases, driven by Southern white racism giving a minority veto power.

Back to the suit itself. It surely will not be heard enough in advance of the March 1 primary date and Libertarian and Green state conventions for candidates of those parties to get judicial relief, if a jury (if jury verdict is being sought) were to rule in favor, and an injunction is unlikely, IMO, given how the state Supreme Court tipped its hand in 2020 re HB 2504 and candidacies then.

Texas Progressives talk ERCOT, RRC, RU486, Roe more

Lots of stuff to consider on this week's Roundup, so let's dig in. The acronyms and one word in the header should tell you what we're about.

Energy

Contra Strangeabbott, who probably checked the National Weather Service 90-day forecast (expected to be warmer and drier than normal) before saying the Texas energy and power grid was ready for another Winter Storm Uri, it isn't. That's mainly cuz Wayno, Kristi and the new dude at the RRC continue to undercut real winterization of the natural gas pipeline and delivery world. The RRC and ERCOT continue to buck-pass on accountability.

Reproductive choice

The state's ban on abortion-inducing medications after seven weeks is almost certainly unconstitutional on interstate commerce grounds. Sadly, to date (other states have such laws), the feds, in the form of the FDA, have been cracking down on mail providers rather than taking states to court.

So, will the SCOTUS either emasculating or full-overturning Roe be a killer-winner for Dems at the 2022 polls? No. Let me repeat that. NO. Speaking of polls, Politico gets top Dem operatives (many anon) and even an Emily's List spox to admit that. The Emily's spox says, in essence "It polls well, but it does bupkis on actual vote turnout." Nothing new; for years, decades even, abortion has been a voting booth push for wingers, not Dems. That said, beyond even librulz, at lefty Counterpunch, Dave Lindorff (wrong on other stuff in the past) doesn't understand that. 

Other state

Matthew McConaughey isn't running for gov, but Dan Solomon rhetorically asks about any continuing interest in politics.

Mark Cuban just bought the town of Mustang. The Monthly suggests others.

The author of a book banned by Lake Travis ISD talks about the process, including apparent racism.

Chris Collins rounds up the Texas weird. 

Off the Kuff provides a couple of filing updates.

Reform Austin laments how their city became one of the least affordable places in the country.

Texas 2036 warns that the shortage of doctors in the state is getting worse. (Hey, remember when tort "reform" was supposed to fix that?)

The Texas Signal talks to Rep. Michelle Beckley about her candidacy for Lt. Governor, and to Jay Kleberg on his bid for Land Commissioner.

Doctors Junda Woo and Barbara Taylor urge San Antonio to use the tools that it has at its disposal to end HIV in that city

Other national and global

What we know so far on what works, what doesn't, what's unsure, on reducing racial bias in policing. 

SocraticGadfly dives back into COVID gain of function issues, along with Fauci and NIAID's apparent failure to monitor Peter Daszag.

RIP Bob Dole. He's still a Republican, even if possibly better than John McCain and Colin Powell. He just doesn't get tarred with the Iraq War because he was no longer in the Senate. Did he ever apologize for being a Nixon flunky? For talking about "Democrat wars"?

Even CNN is calling out Status Quo Joe's confabulations. Sadly, CNN, re this particular confab, is NOT calling out Status Quo Joe's blank checks to Israel.

Kemp vs Perdue in the Georgia GOP primary? Getcha popcorn!

We're Hispanics, not Latinos and REALLY not LatinX

That's the message from new polling sponsored by Politico. Hispanics nationwide almost totally reject the neoblather "Latinx." Not only that, a large majority reject "Latino" / "Latina." For what? I just said for what: "Hispanic." While there are some differences, the preference for "Hispanic" largely transcends age, country of origin, and political alignment. 40 percent say "LatinX" bothers them; 20 percent A LOT. And, 30 percent say their support for a politico using "LatinX" would decrease; that includes 24 percent of Dems and 30 percent of "independents."

Per another Politico piece, if Dems have any brains, they'll see "LatinX" and the academic activists pushing it as "wrongfully woke." That will include noting that the younger generation dislikes it just about as much as oldsters. And yes, it's far from the only reason that Republicans have started getting more Hispanic votes again, but it's one that Dems should indeed listen to.

It is interesting to see 9 percent of US-born Hispanics plump for "something else." Would that be "Chicano" or similar, "Mexican-American" or similar, or not being labeled? Growing up in New Mexico, I know many older, American-born Hispanics preferred "Mexican-American" way back when; the more conservative ones vociferously rejected "Chicano." I can tell you that, even today, "Hispanic" is bigly preferred to "Latino."

That said, if you have to do something? Yes, these words have either masculine or feminine gender in Spanish, but words with an "-e" ending sound neutral. Like "Grande," the adjective in "Rio Grande." And, that is "-es" in the plural, again, more neutral-sounding but wholly pronounceable.

Coronavirus week 87: It marches on — from Huanan Market? And into wingnut stupidity

That's the theme of David Dayen's piece at Prospect. "It marches on." COVID, if you personalize it, doesn't care that many people are tired of lockdowns. It marches on. He notes that more than the Black Lives Matter protests, in some ways, the anti-restrictions protests (sorry, but they weren't "lockdowns, and framing itself is an issue)

==

Now, the main piece:

A new piece at Science claims that we can determine pretty well that Huanan Market was the epicenter of the outbreak. Couple of notes on that. First, even if so, that doesn't mean that WIV's lax protocols still didn't have an indirect hand in this, including experimentation inside the lab leading to a leak which infected wet-market animals. Second, and speaking of, this is a raccoon dog. Per photo at left, yes, it does look kind of like a raccoon, but per the second half of the name, it's a canid most closely related to foxes. And, per the likes of Alina Chan in her new book, if so, it still doesn't make Xi Jinping Thought any more trustworthy on this issue.

Per Tablet Mag, there's additional reason to say this piee does NOT close the door on WIV. It notes that Richard Ebright Tweeted that workers at Chinese labs were known to sell test animals to wet markets.  In this case, no, not a lab leak, but still, HUGE lab sloppiness.

Michael Worobey, the author of the Science piece, says he considered a lab leak in the past, openly. That said, his wet market statement is by-him admittedly based on Chinese research. Alina Chan, who's written a book about everything problematic with China on the issue, and being Chinese-American, undercuts the racism angle, says Worobey has only one piece of the puzzle.

I agree.

==

Now, the rest of the roundup.

Dayan also talks about the Great Resignation in a longer piece; he analogizes COVID to the first big hit of the plague in Europe in the 1300s and how the dramatic cuts in workforce due to plague deaths liberated and empowered the still living.

Balloon Juice has a good roundup of omicron news and stupidity along with general COVID news, stupidity and conspiracy theory reports. One interesting fact is that many early omicron cases reported in Botswana were from European diplomats traveling there. Full story here. Friendly reminder that Angela Merkel is more of a capitalist, bad side, than Status Quo Joe. Also from that roundup? Whenever wingnuts claim that they support the science on this issue, remind them that Missouri's governor blocked the release to the public of a study by his own state's Department of Health and Senior Services that showed mask mandates work. And in international wingnut news, Brazil's Supreme Court has officially OKed a probe into President Jair Bolsinaro's repeated claim that vaccines cause AIDS.

Zeynep Tufekci has an open-thread type update, extracted from Tweets. The main thing she's right on is that it's too soon to tell about severity. She also reminds that antibodies are only one part of the immune system, something some in the science community kind of overlooked last week when attacking BioNTech's cofounder for saying their Pfizer and other vaccines will likely still offer a decent amount of protection. Go read the whole thing, though. Several thoughts there.

Omicron cases look to grow rapidly in the UK.

Reinfection appears fairly high in the previously infected; and so far, as with Delta, infection severity is worse in those with infectious immunity than with the vaccinated, per Katelyn Jetalina.

COVID antivaxxerism and the claim that we just need better nutrition or some "supplements" tain't so new after all. Learn about America's big polio antivaxxer.

Cooperstown veterans committees are fuck-ups again

Buck O'Neil? Hellz, yes. But none of the others they voted in deserve there.

Oh fuck, for fuck's sake.

(And, and to deliberately redouble on something? Contra one commenter, it is NOT the fucking official job description of various incarnations of the veterans committees to "elect" more people. It IS their job to "reconsider" people not elected by the BBWAA.

Now, the capitalists running the HOF will deny that's the unofficial job description; they're deny that's why they tweaked the three committees into four. But, they're lying out their smokestacks.

The whole reason the HOF exists is built on a legend, and the HOF and Cooperstown's wallets are heavily invested in that. I have a late friend who was born and raised there; I know whereof I speak on this sidebar. IMO, overall, hoops and football have better processes.) 

This guy GETS IT:

At the end of the day, it is a plaque in the gallery…and lots of merchandise sold for MLB teams, and the Hall of Fame. It also allows the newly elected Hall of Famer to charge extra for appearances and autographs.

Nothing to add.

Minnie Miñoso ain't a HOFer, and Gil Hodges ain't even a AAA HOFer. Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva don't belong in either.  

(Update, Dec. 22: I now have more detailed looks at the cases against, especially, Oliva and Hodges, and also against Miñoso.)

Same shitheads who voted in Jack Morris and Harold Baines proved they're even more stupid than the Bill Terry and Frankie Frisch veterans committee, notorious for putting in undeserving people like Jim Bottomley. (For that matter, there's a damn good argument writers fucked up voting in Terry, with less than 60 WAR, basically just because .400.)

Seriously, as batters, did committee members Ozzie Smith or George Brett ever think they were watching a HOFer in Kaat? (Sorry, Brett wasn't on this year's committee; Wikipedia's page was kind of confusing. Anyway, he's tagged, and was on previous veterans committees. Besides, that was a sidebar observation that is still valid of Ozzie, who played both with and against Kaat, and doesn't change the larger argument of "you saw X play, did you really think he was a HOFer"?)

Bud Fowler? With basically no stats to consider, he's anecdote and legend. Wouldn't have voted him in. Is he being voted in for being "considered" the first black professional baseball player? That's about as sketchy as his lack of stats. And, yes, I'm being curmudgeonly. Besides, I've always heard Moses Fleetwood Walker was the answer to this question. Fowler only counts if we're talking about minor leagues. Comes off as tokenism, especially if Walker is NOT in. (I had very honestly never heard of Fowler before a week ago.)

Let's tackle these individually, setting aside O'Neil, who we all know should have been in, and Fowler, who I just dealt with.

Miñoso? (Per the third commenter's note, B-Ref's linker runs his name WITHOUT the tilde. But, I have changed that. It still doesn't change my argument or its strength.) 50 WAR. (For various reasons, rightly or wrongly, I don't generally count Negro Leagues numbers on a player considered primarily for his MLB time. A Red Satan piece on Oscar Charleson spells it out for me. B-Ref has scanty enough info on Negro League parks that it cannot park-neutralize OPS+, per the story — and on the flip side, presumably can't park-neutralize ERA+, or calculate FIP, let alone to do a FIP+ like Fangraphs. Because of not having the same minor league structure and individual teams not having minor league systems, B-Ref also can't calculate WAR for Negro Leagues players. For him particularly, he didn't play full time in the Negro Leagues before being signed by the Indians in 1949 at age 23 and put an asterisk on that.)

He was a below-average fielder (he was). He got thrown out on the bases a lot. One 8-WAR, one 6-WAR year. He's not a horrible inductee, but not great.

Back to that asterisk? For anybody talking "but include the Negro Leagues"? Fine. Per B-Ref, he's still under 55 WAR. Given that those were young years, he probably wouldn't have been in MLB's majors most that time were this 20-30 years later and discrimination in playing weren't such a problem, so I still don't see him as much more than 55 WAR. Remember, that when he DID get his initial shot, with the 1949 Indians, he was sent ... to the minors, not back to Negro League ball ... because he wasn't good enough. (The Undefeated, in its fellation of Miñoso, admits that Cleveland was [ahead of the Dodgers!] baseball's most integrated team in 1949. It then raises the "Gold Gloves" argument; well, in two of his three winning seasons, he had a negative dWAR. They didn't exist back then, but that's why cognoscenti look at Fielding Bible awards today.)

Gil Hodges? No 7-WAR seasons. Only one 6-WAR year. Under 45 WAR. Never a top-5 MVP. Not that much as a manager. And, per my response to the first commenter? Alleged sabermetric genyuses like Jay Jaffe are selective on sabermetrics. What good is it appealing to metrics if you're going to ignore or fudge them, Jay? (That's why it's funny as hell to use the cover of his book as illustration for this post.) And, per my crack above? Under 45 WAR and no 7-WAR seasons, yeah, maybe you are a AAA HOFer, but you're NOT a AAAA-replacement level HOFer let alone the real deal.

Would he have been a great manager had he lived? Sabermetrics say no; the 1970 Mets finished 5 games under Pythag; the 1971 Mets were 3 games under. The Senators were over Pythag in 1964-67, but stayed over when jumped to the Mets in 1968.

Kaat? Flat 50 WAR. Look up "compiler" in the MLB Encyclopedia. His picture is there. He even admits it. Falls below 1.10 ERA+, one of my benchmarks besides WAR for a pitcher.Also fails the second, with a WHIP above 1.25. (Black Jack Morris also failed these.) To be a bit charitable, he did have two 7-WAR seasons.

Oliva. Under 50 WAR. Almost EXACTLY another Harold Baines. I don't care if he won three batting titles. Bill Madlock won four and he's not in the HOF either, and he shouldn't be in the HOF either. (Madlock might be an even better comp than Baines.)

I write this as MLBTR's piece on the election has idiots galore in the comments. Beyond the idiots touting candidacies of the undeserving, there's the "greenies were as bad as roids' idiots. They're not and I tackled that six years ago. That said, per the old "Canseco milkshake" and related, there is probably at least one roider already in the Hall. Click the link for my guess on who.

Oh, I've battled the "Big Hall" issue for more than a decade. See here, for example, when Red Satan writers and others complained about a "backlog." Red Satan has tainted a lot of minds, and amplified others, obviously. Jaffe, mentioned above about being sabermetrically selective, was another whiner about an alleged "backlog."

==

Meanwhile, the biggest travesty continues in that Danny Murtaugh was STILL not voted in as a manager. Two WS champs, two other NL East champs, all while battling multiple rounds of the disease that would kill him. 

Bad Bill Dahlen also robbed. Over 70 WAR. Actually deserving.

==

Notes on commeters: "Unknown" had one reasonable comment on Pinson. Other than that, he (I presume) is hitting an increased level of smugness and worse, as well as willfully reading past my comments that I don't want anybody in the Hall, and also not commenting back on the worthiness of those I mentioned, such as Dahlen and Murtaugh on this vote, or Munson and Whitaker elsewhere.

Comment moderation exists for a reason.

No, WAR is not perfect, but, in an actually good piece at Red Satan, I quote:

The goal of WAR is to give the most complete sense of a player's value to his team, and it's perhaps the best piece of data to compare the greatness of one player to the next.

There you go. Couldn't have said it better myself. Now, get off my lawn.

Greenwald, Leighton Woodhouse omit some White Coat details

 That's true, the above picture, about stupidity and COVID contrarian grifting just as much as the virus itself. Let's dig in.

The headline? That's, of course, the White Coat Waste Project, full name. (Named as such, and NOT the "White Coat Animal Safety Project" or similar.) Put an asterisk in that.

This is an expansion of a Twitter thread from last week, after Glennwald hosted Woodhouse at his own Substack.

First Tweet is straight up. (And, the Two Stooges were tagged.)

Leighton Akira Woodhouse is lying. There was coverage in the MSM over the Fauci beagles even before the admission that NIAID had not funded one of the experiments. Maybe not as deep as he wanted but it was there. 1/x https://t.co/b3tVpfcd1P

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 1, 2021

And, I remember MSM coverage. It was reported straight-up, without the humongous outrage that WCWP founder Anthony Bellotti or the likes of COVID contrarian or worse Woodhouse (put an asterisk in that) or public health denialist and libertarian (you ARE) Glennwald (put an asterisk in that) would like. Some of the MSM questioned WCWP's bona fides. I half-bit, noting that its VP of marketing and policy, Justin Goodman, was former PETA. (Put an asterisk in that, too. We'll get to them all.) 

Next? This.

Flip side for .@woodhouse & .@ggreenwald ... why did White Coat publish when it did? Even more, why did Woodhouse decide to lead the weaponization? On this part, David Frum's twitter thread is spot on. 2/x https://t.co/86k7ykFbGR

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 1, 2021

Frum names people like Cancun Ted Cruz as the weaponizers of this. But, before that, it seems like the likes of Woodhouse were doing their own. Maybe even WCWP, including the former PETA VP, . Bellotti's a definite conservative, but some PETA folks are, too. And, even if not? COVID's heavily illustrated horseshoe theory is true, contra the likes of Noah Berlatsky.

Weaponization, did I say? This:

Third, there's the fact that White Coat itself had "Fauci-funded" in headlines despite not having any knowledge of whether or not Fauci personally signed off on any of these projects. It's arguable that "weaponization" started there. 3/x

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 1, 2021

That's what that is. This was an attack on Fauci, not NIAID. And, there's one obvious reason why. So, it wasn't even Woodhouse who led the weaponization, and this is before Bellotti and White Coat Toxic Waste Dump got the funding on one project wrong, as well as not caring to check if Fauci personally signed off on ones approved by NIAID.

Now, back to the Batman and Robin of current headline grifters:

Next, big issue that White Coat never tackles private-sector research that might be worse than the NIAID funded stuff, and does so **To not piss off rich donors** by Bellotti's own admission! Woodhouse and Greenwald either know this and are big grifters or don't & are idiots 4/x

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 1, 2021

Technically, the two options aren't mutually exclusive. Woodhouse's "just asking questions" on his Substack and Glennwald opening challenging public health issues re COVID could well be idiocy, not a grifting appeal to the crowd.

Onward. Next Tweet ties with the previous:

Fifth, let us note that White Coat does not refer to itself as an animal rights group, despite having a former PETA person No. 2?? to Bellotti.
Rather, it calls itself the White Coat WASTE PROJECT
This ties w/ No. 4. Bellotti fellating private sector
5/x https://t.co/UR9wdOQjzm

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 1, 2021

Eventually, White Coat, which is now looking like as much a PR machine as Syria's White Helmets, did reference it being an animal rights group, per the link in that Tweet. But, it never did when founded. 

Besides, there's the old "waste, fraud and abuse" strawmanning. Anybody who's read about the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma over opioids, or Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan about just about anything a bankster can do wrong, know that "waste, fraud and abuse" abound in private sector businesses.

And, to wrap up? Here you go:

Sixth, if not an antivaxxer, is Bellotti a COVID contrarian? Dunno; tweets are protected. We know both Woodhouse and Glennwald are.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 2, 2021

Glennwald's blocked me on Twitter, but before he did, I got receipts from there. Before that, I got receipts from him unfairly blaming Brazilian lockdowns, not the fact that he and porn co-producer David Miranda are Brazilian 0.1 percenters, for the robbery of their Brazilian McMansion. I'm not even going to link to his or Woodhouse's Substacks, not even with a "no follow." But, I did get receipts on him months ago, when he first showed that he was both a COVID contrarian and a tribalist. (If I had remembered that earlier, I probably never would have even half-bit on White Coat Toxic Waste Dump, I mean White Coat Waste Project.

That said, as with the Fauci emails, it takes two sides to fuel flames on tribalism, and Fauci himself, along with much of BlueAnon, is willing to play Br'er Rabbit to the Tar Baby, or vice versa.

Greenwald? It's past tribalism with him; it's cultism by fanbois, which include Greens dumb enough to think he's a leftist.

At the same time, there's still the issue of the puppies. Several thoughts:

1. Is there any of this that can be at least partially replaced by computer simulation?

2. On what can't, why are we using purebred pups instead of getting abandoned dogs from shelters, especially ones that aren't "no-kill," and thus would have fewer qualms about surrendering animals to research.

3. At the same time, a research organization backing continued use of animals notes that when he was still at PETA, Justin Goodman made many inaccurate claims about animal welfare in research. The animal welfare complaints that didn't exist are similar to NIAID noting that (as far as it could tell) welfare guidelines were followed. Also, don't forget, if you didn't know, that PETA kills animals.

4. Is this battle, Fauci and COVID aside, have we descended to another tribalism? Probably.