[Daily Wire] French intelligence officials reportedly warned in 2004 that building a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in Wuhan, China, could lead to a devastating outbreak because of China’s reputation for having poor biosecurity at its labs.
The news comes as most U.S. intelligence agencies believe that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The construction of the lab was a joint agreement between the French and the Chinese and, according to a recent report by France’s Le Figaro newspaper, came at the objection of French intelligence officials.
"The move came despite strong opposition from French diplomatic and security advisers, who argued that the Chinese reputation for poor bio-security could lead to a catastrophic leak," The Daily Mail reported, citing Le Figaro. "They also warned that Paris could lose control of the project, and even suggested that Beijing could harness the technology to make biowarfare weapons. Eleven years later, as the laboratory prepared to open, the French architects of the project complained that they had, as feared, been ousted by the Chinese communist government."
The report by Le Figaro highlights how French intelligence officials were concerned about the lab because of China’s issues with "transparency," an issue that has taken center stage during the coronavirus pandemic as China has repeatedly lied about the pandemic and tried to cover it up in its initial stages.
According to a translation provided by The Daily Mail, a source told the French newspaper that BSL-4 labs are "a bacteriological atomic bomb." Because "the viruses that are tested are extremely dangerous," every safety precaution must be followed at all times in order to prevent an outbreak, the source explained. French intelligence officials noted that China’s labs did not "inspire a great deal of trust" because of the extreme safety concerns that existed.
#8
The French government did this in an ego-driven attempt to show France was as important a world player as America. We warned them, their own intelligence people warned them — but they insisted on continuing anyway
[The Party Manatee] America has undergone enormous change during the nearly eight decades of my life. Today, America is a bitterly divided, poorly educated and morally fragile society with so-called mainstream politicians pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders.
The president of the United States is threatened with impeachment because the other side doesn't like him. The once reasonably unbiased American media has evolved into a hysterical left wing mob. How could the stable and reasonably cohesive America of the 1950s have reached this point in just one lifetime? Who are the main culprits?
Here's my list of the 10 most destructive Americans of the last 80 years.
#3
And other than personal misfortunes such as drug overdoses (the musicians), not one bad thing happened or has happened to any of these people.
And I'd move LBJ to the top of the list. Read Dereliction of Duty.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/27/2020 10:06 Comments ||
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#4
I would include Howard Zinn as his noxious book brainwashed a lot of Americans into hating their country.
[Jpost] Russians rapidly up stakes in Libya with MiG deployment
Russia deployed MiG-29s and other aircraft to Libya in what appeared to be throwing down a gauntlet to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... and other countries that might think Moscow is ending its support for the eastern Libyan government of Khalifa Haftar
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/27/2020 03:14 ||
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[TownHall] - Is the U.S. up for a second Cold War -- this time with China?
What makes the question newly relevant is that Xi Jinping's China suddenly appears eager for a showdown with the United States for long-term supremacy in the Asia-Pacific and the world.
With the U.S. consumed by the coronavirus pandemic
...we’re already returning to work, play, and school as our hospitals clear the remaining patients in their beds ...
that has killed 100,000 Americans and crashed our economy to depths not seen since the Great Depression,
...yes, but the Great Depression did not have stimulus bills with checks to individuals and loans to businesses on top of the usual unemployment benefits to help many of those going without an income for these three months or so...
China's dictator seems to be making his move.
Possibly he will look back on this as his greatest error. Possibly he will decide that letting this virus escape beyond China’s borders was actually the ur-mistake.
At the Communist Party conclave this May, China announced that it was seizing control of Hong Kong's security. From now on, subversion, sedition, secession and foreign meddling within the city will be crushed.
No doubt.
Whatever sanctions the U.S. and its allies impose, there will be no free and independent Hong Kong.
Before placing any bets on that, best to define how far ahead we’re talking about, just in case.
"For an Ascendant China, Reining in Hong Kong Is Just the Start," is the headline over The New York Times story on China's new assertiveness.
Someone needs to check the dictionary definition of ascendant...
"China's move to strip away another layer of Hong Kong's autonomy was not a rash impulse. It was a deliberate act, months in the making," writes reporter Steven Lee Myers. "It took into account the risks of international umbrage and reached the reasonable assumption that there would not be a significant geopolitical price to pay. ...
We’ve seen recently the problems caused by poor modelling. It really doesn’t do to believe the pronouncements of the New York Times crowd — that’s a map with no resemblance to the actual territory, sad to say.
"With the world distracted by the pandemic's devastating toll, China has taken a series of aggressive steps in recent weeks to flex its economic, diplomatic and military muscle across the region.
And the world has flexed back, because everything comes down to physics — equal and opposite reactions in this case, and wave propagation from pebbles dropped ponds... and of course that charming butterfly wing. At any rate, those jobs and industries will never return to China, while the American and Japanese governments are already financing homegrown substitutes. Others will follow, as they work to become more resilient at China’s expense.
...Consider the list of nations with which China has territorial quarrels that have lately produced military clashes.
Beijing claims Indian lands China has occupied since their 1962 war.
China claims virtually all the islets and reefs in the South China Sea and now uses naval vessels to deal with the rival claimants of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Beijing asserts that Taiwan and all of its offshore islands in the East China Sea belong to China. While the Senkaku Islands have long been controlled by Japan, China claims these islands as well.
...So, again, the question: If China is prepared for a Cold War II with the United States to establish its predominance, what are we prepared to do should China absorb Hong Kong and convert it into a second Shanghai?
Don’t forget that we won the last cold war by forcing the Soviet Union to spend beyond their means. This time China’s piggybank is already bursting with IOUs.
What are we prepared to do if China puts new pressure on Taiwan and seizes offshore islands in the East China Sea, as she did in the South China Sea? Sanctions against Vladimir Putin's Russia to compel it to return Crimea and vacate eastern Ukraine have conspicuously failed.
Putin could sell oil. China has flipflops and whatever aspirin is made of.
Are we prepared to fight for any of the islands, none of which we claim and many of which we agree ultimately belong to Beijing?
The Chinese have stolen our intellectual property, coerced technology transfers from our businesses and sent spies posing as students into our universities to thieve our secrets.
We’ve started clearing out the spies, which should be an accelerating process...
Meanwhile, we allowed ourselves to become dependent on China for medicines and drugs vital to the health and the survival of millions of Americans.
[Babylon Bee] SANTEE JUNCTION, MO—At an early voting location this morning, African American citizen Conroy Ferguson turned white after voting Republican. Witnesses also claim he aged about 10 years and become perceivably more stuffy and unpleasant. Upon checking his wallet, Ferguson found his name had also changed to Clinton Hemsley.
Hemsley attempted to return to his family but when he explained what had happened he was cast out—not for his new skin color but for voting Republican.
There are now signs up at the voting location warning black voters that if they vote Republican they may also suddenly turn white.
#1
The old joke about the little black kid who gets struck by lightning and wakes up white. Punchline: "I haven been white for half an hour and I already hate..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/27/2020 11:52 Comments ||
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#2
Michael Jackson turned from a little black kid into a white guy, so we know it can happen.
[Federalist] New White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany isn’t letting so-called journalists get away with inane questions in the briefing room at the expense of real news, and the media don’t like it.
This was on full display over the weekend during the latest media-Trump administration go-around, when McEnany sparred with reporters over the Obama administration’s malfeasance with regard to former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
After a contentious exchange about President Donald Trump’s call for governors to allow churches to reopen, one reporter asked McEnany whether Trump has considered pardoning former President Barack Obama for illegal wiretapping, spying, and other potential crimes. McEnany said she had spoken to the president about the Flynn matter but not that particular question. Then things got interesting.
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Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
I did a search for Kayleigh's name and a number of very negative articles popped up. Seems she is drawing attention away from her boss, while pointing out the hypocrisy of the sleaze media.
Pretty soon, the media will stop attending her briefings, making this a triple play.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/27/2020 8:16 Comments ||
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#2
They have a clear defense plan. Refuse to cover the stories. Professional Pravda.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/27/2020 12:06 Comments ||
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#6
My complaint is that her name is too hard to spell. I wish she'd go with something easier, like "Luca Brasi".
Posted by: Matt ||
05/27/2020 12:16 Comments ||
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#7
^ Heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2020 12:33 Comments ||
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#8
Because they're party propagandists not reporters. Everything in the party, nothing outside the party, nothing against the party. Someone of note said something like that.
NR via Instapundit
Each day that the Obama administration fades into the past, its wrongdoings manage to wander back into the present.
After years of suppression, all sorts of strange events keep popping up to remind us of what little is left of the Obama years — the Susan Rice memo, Christopher Steele deleting his computer records, FBI-doctored and lost 302s, text messages wiped clean, the bizarre Obama January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting, the ambush interview of Michael Flynn, the unmasking and leaking of redacted names swept up in reverse-targeting surveillance operations, the administration fraud perpetrated on the FISA courts. The list is so overwhelming and bizarre that it ensures that anything at any time can now appear. And the result keeps reminding Americans of how corrupt were the years between 2009 and 2017 and how untruthful was the coverage of such institutionalized wrongdoing.
Emeritus Barack Obama now and then ventures out to go through the motions of an enfeebled defense for what is becoming an increasingly discredited administration. But his heart is not in it. His mind is elsewhere. His cause is no longer social activism and community organizing, if it ever was, but lucre and the perceived well-earned good life. The arc of his moralizing universe is long, but for the anointed like him, it apparently bends toward the just deserts of riches and material bounty.
First lady forever and bestselling memoirist Michelle Obama sometimes takes a hiatus from making millions to offer a half-hearted progressive warning about the sudden heartlessness of the country — reminiscent of her transitory 2008 warnings about a downright mean country and one of which she had previously not been especially proud.
The remains of the Obama team (Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey, Samantha Power) are not offering much of a defense for the Obama years — they are now too busy scrambling to hide their own legal culpability and exposure. The bending arc of the 2009 dream team finally ends in the platitudes of "I can’t remember" and "Not to my knowledge" that will eventually find their way from CNN and MSNBC into the court room.
#3
A masterly summary by VDH of Zero's corruption and a handy reference.
VDH failed to mention the $68m NFLX payback for Zero's FCC support for the pro-NFLX "net neutrality" con but he got everything else in. A nice dig at "failed novelist Ben Rhodes" and his lead role on the insane JCPOAP.O.S. deal with Iran.
#5
If people say "been there done that, no thanks" next time dems trot out a commie groomed empty suit for president, that will be a fine legacy indeed, if not necessarily the one they were looking for.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/27/2020 14:50 Comments ||
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#6
Next conspiracy will be that Trump's folks waited until right before the election to reveal the wrong-doing instead of doing so right away.
[DailyCaller] The coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic has revealed a troubling truth: Global supply chains operated by stateless multinational corporations simply aren’t reliable. Americans are learning this in real-time as they see imports from China cut off, particularly for critical medicines and pharmaceuticals. That has put millions of lives at risk since 90 percent of the generic medications that Americans use each day are imported. Even worse, 90 percent of the ingredients for generic drugs used to treat coronavirus infections are sourced from China.
This will have serious consequences for America’s healthcare and national security. In response, Washington must encourage the reshoring of pharmaceutical production as well as the development of countermeasures for future threats, including critical drug treatments, vaccines, medical devices, and personal protective equipment.
Continued on Page 49
#1
You reap what you sow, and that's what the US did. Now, let's try to fix it. But the reason many things were "off-shored" in the first place was labor costs. Does anybody really believe there will be no adverse affect on prices here?
#6
US would pay for moving costs? Sure, why not? Gum'ment is paying for everything else around here. Any semblance of free-market capitalism is long, long gone.
#8
I don’t care if they specifically come back to the US.
Send them to a US territory or this continent. Work with the tribes.
As part of BRAFTA Negotiations, give BoJo a bone. He can put some in England or Ireland or BVI. Let the NHS profit and let them sell to Europe. Scotland gets left in the cold, tho, since they want to leave.
If Poland or Hungary leaves, give them a bone, too.
#9
Part of the problem is the NIMBY destruction of the American chemical industry. The precursors have to come from somewhere, and if you don't have some control over those, drug factories alone are no help with getting us out of China's shadow.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/27/2020 12:26 Comments ||
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#10
Offer to suspend payroll taxes for 3 years to any firm that repatriates to the US.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Wire] French intelligence officials reportedly warned in 2004 that building a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in Wuhan, China, could lead to a devastating outbreak because of China’s reputation for having poor biosecurity at its labs.
[Babylon Bee] SANTEE JUNCTION, MO—At an early voting location this morning, African American citizen Conroy Ferguson turned white after voting Republican. Witnesses also claim he aged about 10 years and become perceivably more stuffy and unpleasant. Upon checking his wallet, Ferguson found his name had also changed to Clinton Hemsley. 
[Federalist] New White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany isn’t letting so-called journalists get away with inane questions in the briefing room at the expense of real news, and the media don’t like it.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
