Tuesday Evening Miscellany

This will be pretty much just a reading list.

A reader sent me an article by Michael Lind at Tablet the topic of which will be dear to the heart of many conservatives:

The Bush Restoration

The populist wave is receding, leaving neoliberal elites in charge of both parties and a beleaguered working class out in the cold

I’ll just say that I disagree with Lind on this. He makes a variety of persuasive arguments to support his view that populism has had its day and the Neoliberal Establishment has regained control. Obviously the Neoliberal Establishment, aided and abetted by the Deep State intel agencies, is fighting back with all its might—anything goes, as the entire Trump presidency illustrates. I believe there’s hope, especially in the overreach of the Establishment. Lind’s basic critique of the conservative populist movement is twofold: 1) Lind doesn’t like cultural issues, and 2) conservative populists aren’t old line liberals. Lind thinks a hike in the minimum wage and similar nostrums will right all that’s wrong in America. I think the way forward is to reverse the transformation of America into a financialized economy with a hollowed out manufacturing sector. See what you think.

Alex Berenson has a thought provoking post. The title pretty much speaks for the substance of the post:

No (mRNA/DNA) vaccines, no epidemic

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia collectively have 2 billion people... and essentially no access to advanced Covid vaccines.

They are among the world’s most densely populated and poorest countries - fertile ground for Sars-Cov-2.

So the epidemic must be out of control from Karachi to Jakarta, right?

I think you know the answer, which Berenson presents with a wealth of data. Next question: Are the vaccines feeding the epidemic?

Finally, Zerohedge has an article about the DoJ’s effort to suppress a cheap medication against Covid. The government claims the manufacturer is making unsupported claims. The manufacturer is responding that its claims and the research to support them were published by the governments own public health organs:

Feds Seek To Block Promotion Of Nasal Spray Against COVID-19

Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The leading U.S. manufacturer of xylitol-based products says the federal government is deliberately trying to conceal a nasal spray it developed that it says has been scientifically proven to be effective in treating and preventing COVID-19.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court against Utah-based company Xlear on Oct. 28, saying it has deceptively advertised its nasal spray as a treatment and preventative of COVID-19.

The lawsuit asks a federal court to permanently ban the company from promoting the nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19 and also asks that monetary penalties be levied against it.

...

The spray’s main ingredients are saline, grapefruit seed extract, and xylitol, a plant-derived sweetener commonly used in oral care products.

“Companies can’t make unsupported health claims, no matter what form a product takes, or what it supposedly prevents or treats,” said Samuel Levine, director of the trade commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release on the lawsuit.

“That’s the lesson of this case and many others like it, and it’s why people should continue to rely on medical professionals over ads.”

...

Xlear’s attorney Robert Housman, of the Washington firm Book Hill Partners, told The Epoch Times that the commission is “flat out lying” about the company’s claims being unsupported.

Housman pointed out that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services—funded clinical studies of the use of nasal sprays like Xlear’s and published findings last year that found they were an effective treatment and method of prevention for COVID-19.

“When Xlear tells people about scientific studies, even ones republished by the NIH, we are somehow misleading people and making false claims. It’s nonsensical,” Housman told The Epoch Times.

“Rather than embrace nasal interventions, the government is trying to eliminate their use because they don’t fit the government’s highly flawed, vaccine-only agenda.”

On Sept. 20, 2020, the NIH and NIAID published the findings of a random clinical trial they funded at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee on the merits of using hypertonic nasal saline irrigations to combat the CCP virus.

The researchers in that study wrote that the “effect of nasal irrigation on symptom resolution was substantial,” reporting that “nasal congestion and headaches in COVID patients resolved an average seven to nine days earlier” in the study group.

“Our analysis suggests that nasal irrigations may shorten symptom duration and may have potential as a widely available and inexpensive intervention to reduce disease burden among those affected,” the researchers wrote in their findings.

“We would advocate the use of hypertonic nasal saline irrigations in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients as a safe and inexpensive intervention to reduce symptom burden.”

Housman pointed out that the NIH also published the results of a clinical trial, held a few months later in November at the Larkin Community Hospital in Florida, that found the Xlear nasal spray specifically cleared symptoms of the disease in half the time.

Read it all.