Coronavirus Week 74B: How long a long haul?

That header question is the focus of Ed Yong's latest in The Atlantic. He also talks about just what symptoms may, or may not, define it; how much, or how little, many doctors may actually know, or claim they know; and how much patients have taken the reins into their own hands.

Related to that is why? He says two hypotheses, which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, have some solid support. One is that COVID is still symptomatic at a low and ongoing level. The other is that it's provoked an ongoing autoimmune disorder response.

 

Given multiple recent arrests in Hawaii, this TNR piece on the wild west of vaccination card fraud is interesting. Most of the fakes won't pass muster with real people, but, more important to the story, outside of Hawaii quarantining itself, most people checking these things don't really care and don't have an eyeball, so rather than pay $250, in crypto, natch, why not just Photoshop your own?  And, ignore the counterfeiters who keep insisting that "they" will tighten the belt soon.

COVID denialists/minimalists wanting to try to citizens' arrest a principal telling them their kid needed to  quarantine (at the same time, in a district with no mask mandate), or ripping a mask off a teacher in class (here in Tex-ass, natch) are why I reject leftist COVID conspiracy claims just as readily as those of wingnuts. The dad who led the would-be citizens' arrest was himself later arrested.

In wingnut states and areas, more and more people are ODing on ivermectin rather than just getting vaccinated.

More than 4,000 people died in Texas last month, in part due to Strangeabbott.

Ditto on the 45 school districts (and counting) having to shut down.

Speaking of? Socratic Gadfly goes coronavirus-snarky with "Who Killed Cock Robin" COVID version.

Delta is also hammering the Texas construction industry. (The Monthly doesn't ask, though, if the number of Ill Eagles is part of vax hesitancy among workers.)

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone's report about scads of people OD'ing in Oklahoma on ivermectin is reportedly full of shit, starting with the fact that the doctor-story source hadn't worked at the main hospital in question for two months, per the hospital. Drew Holden has the details; unfortunately, as a semi-wingnut, or full-on, he may be overzealous in who he's dunking on, or on extending the dunking beyond this particular story. (He did retweet Dylan Matthews noting that winger media do the same stupidity, but will probably fall back on "RTs ≠ endorsements.") See my own opening tweet in a three-tweet thread noting that Holden's actual dunk-value is narrower than he paints it, and concluding with the essentially fraudulent nature of the "go-to" ivermectin study, and calling on Holden to retweet. 

The full story about how that study is essentially fraudulent itself needs a careful reading. Wingnuts-of-wingnuts like Dark Webber Bret Weinstein have been leaders in ivermectin peddling. And, like some leftists, but from a different angle, he hints at conspiracy behind the push for vaccines if ivermectin means "there shouldn't be vaccines we're administering," because ivermectin renders them irrelevant.

That said, I suspect Holden will actually do no such retweeting. Yes, he has written for the New York Times before, and the Washington Post. But also for Fox. And National Review.

I might still cut him slack there.

But, the Federalist? Bridge too far, at least in the abstract, for my credibility.

So, did the Taliban REALLY have a "no strings attached" offer to surrender bin Laden or worse? Or was Alex Cockburn lying?

Via the "Roaming Charges" scattershooting column by Counterpunch's Jeff St. Clair two weeks ago, we get that claim. Specifically, that the Taliban offered to do this before 9/11. Color me skeptical.

That was linked inside the column, to an old CP piece by Alexander Cockburn. Counterpunch's claim, via an Afghan informant, that the Taliban was ready to hand over bin Laden pre-9/11, with few strings attached, seems ... uh, not likely. 

First, despite some claims by Kabir Mohabbat about setting up a deal? Especially the ones about the Taliban deliberately making bin Laden a sitting duck? The Slickster had already tried to off him with a cruise missile in 1998 and a RPG in 2000.

Second, per this story and others, like this the Taliban, when it offered to make a post-9/11 deal, had preconditions. Part of that was an amnesty. (No duh.) But, there were other preconditions. One was that Bush prove bin Laden was behind 9/11. And, that it wouldn't be a direct handover to US hands.

Mullah Omar, beyond that, directly contracts Mohabbat, at least for public consumption. And, at least one assistant of his is on the record to the same end with al Jazeera.

The idea that the Taliban would have made him a sitting duck is also laughable. They knew by this time of Clinton's missed cruise missile, first. From that, they had some idea of the relative accuracy of cruise missiles. Also, by this time, even though at one point, the Taliban restricted his movements somewhat, had pinch come to shove, bin Laden would have exploited factionalism either within the Taliban, or between Taliban and other mujahideen, to make sure his movements wouldn't have been too circumscribed.Beyond that, psychologically? If you're attaching conditions still even after the bombing starts? It's laughable to think that the Taliban would have had done a no-strings deal before that.

That said, from all we know from stuff like this, Mohabbat may have had some axes to grind, or self-importance to puff up. In addition, the interview was by Cockburn, who may have been committing one of the two sins that led me to de-blogroll Counterpunch for a number of years. That sin? It's the same as today's allegedly outside the box stenos like Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté — a reflexive anti-Americanism that engages in twosiderism and says that everything the bipartisan foreign policy establishment gets wrong must therefore be right. (Xi Jinping and the Uyghurs is today's obvious example, whether seemingly a sincere belief from the likes of Aaron, or presumable grift/PR flak from the likes of Max.) 

Sidebar: Alex's other sin was, IMO, pushing the envelope of anti-Zionism into antisemitism. Now, my knowledge of how much and how readily the cudgel of conflating these two is used by Zionists has grown a lot since then. But .... within leftism and left-liberalism, other people raised an eyebrow at times about him. At a minimum, even when trying to be charitable to him and taking individual comments within the context of an entire column or essay, Alex left himself open to charges like this, and they were leveled not just within leftism and left-liberalism, but by people who were often sympatico with him.

In short, and bluntly, one or both of these two was lying. Both are dead and can't be interrogated.

But, given that Mohabbat's claims have been covered elsewhere, and also here, with no mention of any "unconditional surrender" (or of "I'll get the Taliban to make him a sitting duck for a cruise missile") it's pretty clear who was lying or exaggerating of the two, and it ain't him. Gee, I'm shocked. I'm also "shocked" that this, the "unconditional surrender," is claimed to have been part of a direct quote of Mohabbat.

 ==

Sadly, brother Patrick hasn't fallen all that far from the apple tree. On Tuesday a week ago, he semi-sneered at the idea that ISIS-K and the Taliban were separate entities, even though the animosity between parent ISIS and the Taliban has been well known for years. For real insight about the Greater Middle East, you should start with James Dorsey. Dorsey wrote precisely about this same issue on the same date.

To some degree, Cockburn and Dorsey have different focuses. Patrick, like his brother, is in part trying to flog the U.S. bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and when the backside of the establishment is presented any tool becomes a whip, while Dorsey is focused on the Greater Middle East on its own terms. That said, for all the reflexive anti-Americanism both Cockburns show at times, why can't THEY on occasion do just that? Robert Fisk did. As part of that different focus, Dorsey also looks beyond just ISIS-K to other challenges the Taliban may face from alternative militant groups.

In all that, though, there's some degree of straight disagreement about how much the Taliban have to fear, Dorsey indicates it's more a real thing than Cockburn does. (And, although Dorsey doesn't go into it, this may be another reason why the Taliban put preconditions on surrendering bin Laden. They didn't really want to, because it might threaten their control over Afghanistan; preconditions gave them an out.)

(Update: In a new piece, Dorsey notes Iran has already cooled to the Taliban somewhat do to its freeze-out of ethnic Hazaris, who are also religiously Shi'ite. Again, you won't find stuff like this in the more simplistic pages of Counterpunch.)

Between these things and more and more CP stuff being paywalled, it may be on blogroll watch.

Coronavirus Week 74A: More on WIV lab leak idea; but no, "gain of function" ≠ "bioweapons"

Sam Husseini is arguably right to talk about a "cover-up" by St. Anthony of Fauci, and Peter Dazsag outside the government, over the possibility of a lab lead at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's right that the U.S. government should investigate itself. Now, could Pelosi really block an investigation unless Biden wanted to be blocked? I doubt it.

Was "gain of function" research involved? Yes. Per Jaime Metzl, I've already rejected Fauci's Jesuitical attempt to explain away this issue.

BUT!

I totally reject that bioweapons research is what this is. I totally reject the idea that Husseini seems to be playing with, that just because "gain of function" is involved, that makes it bioweapons.

Besides, if the US really wanted to do bioweapons research, it sure as hell wouldn't be working with a Chinese lab. Now, is it theoretically possible China, as it walled off the French after the lab was built, would have walled us off, too? Theoretically, yes. For this? Highly unlikely, that is, highly unlikely that we'd be allowed to be part of such research.

And, in this case, there would have been bigger alarms leaking from somewhere inside the US. Seriously, a Mike Pompeo with his CIA post would have been all over this.

I won't say that Sam Husseini is firmly in conspiracy theory territory. But, I think he has the toes of one foot there, at a minimum. 

In all of this, Husseini tells Ken Silverstein that he doesn't want to be in winger territory. And, he generally presents as a leftist. But, beyond arguably dipping his toes into conspiracy thinking, Sam's also going down the path of horseshoe theory. And yes, contra some leftists, at times I think it's real. Don't like that being stated? Then don't go down that road. (And, the fact that Husseini protests he's not? Per Shakespeare ....)

This is all what makes this not only wrong, but dangerous.

The alternative angle, which would arguably be more charitable, is that Husseini is an idiot, not a conspiracy theorist. (The two, of course, are nowhere near mutually exclusive.) But, I've seen Husseini in action before; he doesn't strike me as an idiot.

So, per Shakespeare? He probably doth indeed protest too much.

Top blogging for August

This is as of Sept. 2. Not all blog posts are from August.

Top blogging?

The alleged fraud of Dan Ariely.

No. 2? My personalized "Texas Progressives" take on Texas media pulling punches on climate change.

No. 3? From my vacation last month, wondering which is worse, Southwest/Southworst or the merged Sprint/T-Mobile.

No. 4? My hot take on Abbott getting COVID. No 6 is related: My take on local governments battling Strangeabbott on antimasking issues. No. 8 was a follow-up to No. 6.

No. 5? My explanation of what the Lake Mead-mandated water cuts mean for Aridzona in particular and the Southwest in general.

No. 7? My thoughts on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

No. 9 was also COVID-related. It was about France warning the US and the world about the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

No. 10? I said the Texas Supremes were right to reject Texas Dems' weak-assed, legally and constitutionally unfounded, suit over Abbott's veto of the legislative budget.

Jim Schutze is back, sort of

Schutze, the cop-loving, union-hating, not-so-liberal curmudgeon of Dallas Observer fame, followed by a cup of coffee at D Mag that lasted less than six months and expired more than six months ago, is now back, in a sense.

Schutze's 1970s book about Dallas civil rights, "The Accommodation," is being reprinted. The book is what really rocketed him to local fame. 

The Monthly reviews the history. Gus Bova has yet more, with more detailed info, at the Observer. (Via Bova, D Mag reports the Monthly trashed the book on first publication; its new review, "shockingly," ignores that.) The new issue has a new forward by Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price. Bova's account, unlike the Monthly's, includes some of the Price-Schutze tensions. It also notes that some younger Black activists think Jimbo overstated his thesis. Reading Jerry Hawkins' quote on that, though, I think HE oversells HIS thesis that Schutze is overselling his thesis. Doesn't matter if the Black Panthers were in Dallas in the 1960s and 1970s and wouldn't talk to Schutze; Black clergy and businessmen in more activist cities than Dallas wouldn't work with the Panthers, in general.

As for the cop-loving? Sure, he bashed on cops from the early 1950s when writing in the mid-1970s. Easy stuff. But, hey Jim? "Amber Guyger." "Botham Jean."

 

Re Jimbo and JWP, have they fully buried the hatchet? Pretended to? Dallas Inland Port still lurking in the background? 

I mean, contra Hawkins' claims, Our Man Downtown having a thumb in the pie of the Inland Port, or rather, a thumb in the pie of Ross is Junior Boss's Fort Worth Alliance, and so, trying to kill the Dallas Inland Port, proves Jimbo right 119 percent. I've written before about that, about JWP coming off as a shakedown artist and more.

On the third hand, despite the tenor of the book, Schutze in the past decade has come off to me as looking kind of anti-Black.

Texas Progressives tackle Strangeabbott and the Lege

Texas political stupidity and red-assed-ness was even more on display than normal the last week or two. The abortion bill, of course, the biggie, paralleled by the voting restrictions bill. Meanwhile, Status Quo Joe had an up-and-down week on Texas-related issues.

With that, let's dig in to this week's roundup. There's plenty here.

Texas

Texas is already being sued over the new vote restrictions bill even as a federal judge has ruled the state owes attorney fees to plaintiffs over previous lawsuits over that old voting ID abomination bill.

Sayonara and Happy Trails to Dale Hansen.

THE University of Texas is about to get the Liberty Institute, essentially, its equivalent of Stanford's Hoover Institution on wingnut steroids. Lordy.

Off the Kuff finds a bit of early evidence that Greg Abbott may have done some damage to his general election brand. (Yours truly is tackling this on Friday.)

Other contributors to this week's Roundup were all talking about the abortion bill.

RAICES vows to disobey Texas' new Roe-violating abortion ban.

Steve Vladeck finds a flagrant example of SCOTUS not being at all hampered by procedural obstacles when they wanted to.

Finally, you can and should make a donation to a variety of funds that support abortion access in Texas here. 

National

Richard Spencer, who ran his Neo-Nazi "policy organization" out of his mother's basement summer home in Whitefish, Montana, is now getting full-on Amish-type shunning, including being denied service at many places in Whitefish, allegedly broke, and still facing both a criminal trial and civil lawsuits over Charlottesville 2017. Antisemitic pal Andrew Anglin, founder of The Daily Stormer, lost a $14 million lawsuit over his dogpiling on a Whitefish real estate agent in regards to a property owned by Spencer's mom. Oh, and his wife divorced him over all this. Mediaite has more.

Unfortunately, after first thinking about doing the right thing, Spencer's mom apparently fell under the sway of Sonny Boy.

Yes, #BlueAnon, Biden tells whoppers. The problem is, he has such a history that any new whoppers can't be used to make any mental health judgments.

Biden has ordered the FBI to do a declassification review of 9/11 materials. Whether anything new actually will be declassified is another matter.

National-Texas

Is a levee improvement in the Valley actually a wall?

Biden said he'll get Congress to fight the Texas abortion bill. The Daily Poster reports that Congress has been slothful on this issue.