Goat Rodeo for the Ages?

Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ editorial page seems to have succumbed entirely to RFK Jr. derangement syndrome. In her WSJ commentary on the latest Senate hearings, blaming Kennedy for the confusion at the CDC, she jumped the shark. She has written only vituperative commentary about RFK Jr. and appears now to be completely incapable of any rational judgment related to anything regarding him.

She longs for the mere "incompetence" of Xavier Becerra in place of the supposed massive damage Kennedy is doing to the CDC. She seems to be completely unaware (how that could be in a top-notch journalist and commentator is hard to explain, other than a severe RFK Jr. derangement syndrome) that Becerra presided over the greatest and most unnecessary damage to the American nation ever perpetrated. All of which occurred through the CDC, NIH, FDA, and HHS: COVID lockdowns, school closures, and vaccine mandates, none of which had any scientific basis whatsoever. They were all concocted based on nothing, or worse — the demands of Randi Weingarten because of unfounded fears of teachers, who seemingly didn't want to have to work for their paychecks. Admittedly, Becerra was publicly AWOL and pretty much escaped the public eye as the Democrat congress under Biden wasn't about to put him on the hot seat in front of the Senate or the House. However, he presided over the travesty, causing vast damage to the economy and public health, along with Redfield, Birx, and Wallensky, as well as Fauci and Collins.

All of these were wrong about everything. By the end of March 2020, almost before the lockdowns got started, it was clear (from the work of Jay Batacharya) that lockdowns were useless, and so they would prove to be. School closings by that time were also known to be of no value; the mortality from COVID among young children was minuscule, and that of teachers was no different than other professions. But even after the economically disastrous and public health-damaging lockdowns ended, school closures remained (as did their immense harm).

Then came the vaccine mandates, which were bogus from the beginning. The FDA declared the mRNA vaccines "safe and effective" before they were adequately tested, all so that the Emergency Use Authorization could be ended and a totally unscientific vaccine mandate imposed. It was completely politicized under Becerra and pretty much destroyed the credibility of the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, and HHS. Strassel apparently is unaware of these outcomes.

Contrary to what we were told, the mRNA vaccines never prevented COVID, never prevented transmission, never prevented the spread of the disease. They were not more effective than natural immunity, and never reduced excess mortality (the ultimate test of a vaccine's efficacy). Ironically, the non-mRNA vaccine from Johnson and Johnson was demonstrated to reduce excess mortality by 30%. It was the one that was paused for poorly grounded reasons, likely resulting in unnecessary deaths among the elderly. The safety of mRNA vaccines remains a question mark due to the CDC's dishonest characterization of data (for example it averred that myocarditis was rare and always mild and not a problem, when that is very likely not the case at all; Aaron Rodgers astutely took the monoclonal antibody infusion rather than the mRNA vaccine in an end around of the misguided NFL vaccine mandate, to avoid any possibility of myocarditis, a prescient decision for which he took a lot of erroneous heat--the monoclonal antibody infusion was at least as effective as the vaccine without the risks).

Strassel bemoans the departure of many from the CDC over Kennedy's COVID vaccine recommendations (children should not be required to receive COVID vaccines--they don't need them, except in unusual cases or circumstances. for which they are not being withheld). She has never commented on Martin Kullforf's departure from the CDC's COVID vaccine panel (he was dismissed for asking questions about safety and efficacy), nor, for that matter, on his appointment to the CDC by RFK Jr. That alone discredits all of her commentary.

Martin Kulldorf is one of the world's leading experts on epidemiology and vaccines. He was formerly on the faculty of Harvard, a professor of medicine, and one of the top three epidemiologists in the world (along with Jay Batacharya and Sunetra Gupta). He was fired from Harvard for not taking the vaccine. By the time the vaccine became available, he had already had COVID, had nearly died from it, and had natural immunity. Because the CDC denied the efficacy of natural immunity, he was denied an exemption from taking the vaccine. He also asked for a medical exemption because he has a genetic disorder, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, which leads to lung and liver problems. Having barely survived COVID, he did not wish to incur further medical risk with the vaccine. His request for a medical exemption was denied. He then requested a religious exemption, cheekily pointing out that the erroneous concepts on COVID that were underpinning those denials were not science, but rather beliefs more akin to religious ones. The religious exemption was denied, of course.

Strassel doesn't realize that by reappointing Kulldorf to the CDC, RFK Jr. is pursuing the science more assiduously than has ever been done since the advent of the COVID era. Kulldorf is worth more scientifically than the entire cadre of personnel that left. Strassel utterly destroys her own rationality. She effectively seconded the opinion of Senator Cant (yes, I know that is Cantwell, but the Senator does not Cant very well at all, so the theme should be just Cant).

Kennedy has struck an unparalleled blow for science and freedom of expression at the same time. In addition, he has managed to get those individuals most dangerous to the nation to self-deport from the CDC, which is a great boon to the health of the nation. We don't need another mandate for a vaccine, specifically for monkeypox. All of this really seems to bother Strassel.

Let's visit the Jacobson v. Massachusetts case from over a century ago, which established the police powers of state health agencies to mandate vaccines. It was the case most cited to justify the COVID vaccine mandates, but the case does not support COVID vaccine mandates as they were implemented. Even worse, the case was wrongly decided by a bunch of imbeciles (including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) on the Supreme Court. It does not even justify smallpox vaccine mandates without exceptions. And the COVID vaccine is nothing like the smallpox vaccine, which confers virtual lifetime immunity with a single injection.

What were the facts of the case? Henning Jacobson was a Swedish pastor who had emigrated to the US at the end of the 19th Century. He was living in Massachusetts at a time when there was a public healthcare crisis over smallpox. The state passed a law mandating Smallpox vaccines. Pastor Jacobson declined to take the vaccine. The reason he did was that he had previously been vaccinated for smallpox in Sweden and did not need another vaccine. He was immune and had no risk of contracting the virus or infecting others. Sweden had eradicated smallpox by the end of the 19th Century. Amazing but true. Further, Pastor Jacobson had had a severe and painful reaction to the vaccine that persisted for about 3 years before resolving. His son had experienced a similar adverse reaction to the smallpox vaccine. So he did not need the vaccine and should have been medically exempted from taking the vaccine. Neither applied in the US, and the Supreme Court so ruled. Oliver Wendell Holmes was involved in that decision and voted among the 7-2 majority. Jacobson had been jailed and fined. He paid the fine and never took the second dose (which was unnecessary). So the Supreme Court decision on which our public health establishment currently claims power is essentially bunkum.

Olver Wendell Holmes cited Jacobson V. Massachusetts in his execrable majority opinion in Buck v. Bell, wherein he averred that if the state had the power to vaccinate for contagion as in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, it also had the power to forcibly sterilized the "unfit" for public health purposes, to prevent human contagion from 'unfit" individuals, and remanded poor (and normal) Carrie Buck to the State of Virginia to be forcibly sterilized, stating that "three generations of Imbeciles are enough." Holmes even got the terminology wrong. Under the primitive terminology of the day, Carrie Buck was labelled a Moron (a milder state of mental incapacity, which she did not have) and not an Imbecile. It was the Boston Brahmin, not the impoverished Virginia teenager, who seemed to be the (dangerous) Imbecile and a threat to the public weal.

It is also a bit ironic that Sweden, the home of Martin Kullforf, was foremost among the Western nations in refusing to implement COVID lockdowns. They were heavily criticized during the pandemic, but fared better than pretty much every other nation. Yet few, if any, are willing to acknowledge that. Sweden led the world in eradicating smallpox, gave us a gifted epidemiologist to whom we would not listen (much to our detriment), and gave the best scientifically based example of how to approach COVID. The country remains vilified for its success.

The Goat Rodeo for the Ages is ongoing and is to be found among our discredited medical establishment, our deep state, and our media. Kennedy is trying his best to reorient us; no thanks to the Democratic goats in the Senate, and the goats writing in the legacy Media.

Strassel could begin to redeem herself if she were to acknowledge the virtual certainty that the COVID virus was created in a lab in Wuhan. She has criticized the investigations into COVID origins and is willing to consider a lab origin, but is still on the fence as to the origin of the virus. The human gene sequence at the Furin cleavage site, necessary for viral entry into human cells (via attachment at the ACE receptor), is a dead giveaway that the virus was engineered in a lab. David Baltimore said as much when he first set eyes on the viral sequence early in 2020.

I would recommend Martin Kulldorf's article in City Journal, March 2024 (Harvard Tramples the Truth) to Ms Strassel for her enlightenment. And to anyone else interested.