In this week's episode of "America This Week," [Eric] Bolling spoke with Judy Mikovits, the medical researcher featured in the discredited "Plandemic" video that went viral earlier this year and which was banned from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Throughout the segment, the on-screen graphic read, "DID DR. FAUCI CREATE COVID-19?"...Interesting debate over the meaning of "hefty." He's saying calling it "hefty" was like saying, That's a mighty big claim you're making, so you'd better have some very substantial evidence. CNN is saying — more believably — that calling a claim "hefty" is saying it has weight, so it seems as though it's substantial on its own, without evidence.
During the interview Mikovitz told Bolling that Fauci had over the past decade "manufactured" and shipped coronaviruses to Wuhan, China, which became the original epicenter of the current outbreak. Bolling noted that this was a "hefty claim," but did not meaningfully challenge Mikovits and allowed her to continue making her case....
But Bolling, a former Fox News host, told CNN Business in a series of text messages that he invited Mikovits onto his show to "question and challenge her beliefs." Bolling also said he does not control the on-screen graphics that appear during his show.
"I did challenge her," Bolling said, noting he called her claim "hefty."
When pressed over whether calling a claim "hefty" constituted effectively challenging the conspiracy theory Mikovits pushed, Bolling said that he did believe he challenged her.
I was motivated to look up the word "hefty" in the OED. "Heft" means weight, and "hefty," meaning weighty, is originally U.S. dialect. Early examples all sound like rural Americans talking:
1867 F. H. Ludlow Little Brother 167 I reckon I could forgive him..but I'm afeard it'd come hefty on me.Ha ha. It seems to have been a way to call someone fat.
1871 N.Y. Tribune 21 Jan. He is, as a Yankee would say, a little hefty for the ideal lover.
1873 ‘Josiah Allen's Wife’ My Opinions & Betsey Bobbet's 372 I never looked well in the saddle any way bein’ so hefty.
Oddly enough, it also meant (in the U.S.) "Easy to lift or handle": "It should be hefty, light and of a form that can be easily held in the hand" (1885). That makes sense because "heft," the verb, means (in U.S. dialect) "to lift."
1932 W. Faulkner Light in August xiv. 308 He was hefting the bench leg.So even if something had heft — in that it was weighty — it could be hefty — if it was liftable. That's why "Hefty" is good branding for trash bags. The bags themselves aren't heavy, but they make what might be heavy relatively easy to lift.
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55 comments:
Wait...CNN is bitching that somebody else didn't challenge a ridiculous claim? CNN?
Yes, this truly sounds like a fringe story. But not nearly as deep and troubling as the Russia Collusion conspiracy that included numerous "Blockbuster" press leaks, required millions of dollars of spending into kangaroo hearings and sealed room interviews, took 3 years of our press focus (including the first 2 months of the Wuhan pandemic hitting the US), and led to the kangaroo impeachment in the house. It was, apparently, an Officially Approved Fiction. CNN made their year off of it. They fed it, encouraged it (and still do).
Calling out Fauci is not Officially Approved.
In January, when Wuhan was knocking out the City of New York, Seattle, Detroit (and others) CNN was breathless in their coverage of the impeachment (which was a fictionalized storyline based on a fictionalized write up from a drunk, out of favor former spy).
The only good thing that CNN does is to continue to pay James Earl Jones for his voice.
discredited "Plandemic" video
When an outfit like cnn claims something is "discredited" I take it to mean that they wish it weren't true.
If YouTube, CNN et al are going to tell me I can't see it, I'm going to see it.
It is downloading as I type.
I found it here:
https://plandemicvideo.com/sdm_downloads/download/
John Henry
We know that Dr. Fauci, as head of NIH, directed research dollars to the lab in Wuhan where this novel coronavirus. This is well established, as is the fact that those research dollars were earmarked for research into novel viruses, said research having been banned by law from being conducted within the United States. Does “Pandemic” say anything more than that? Because those two facts are pretty damning as far as I’m concerned.
This is how the federal bureaucracy works. If they’re directed to do something they don’t want to do, it doesn’t get done. If there’s a law passed by Congress that prevents them from doing something they want to do, then they find a way around it.
The true story is scary enough. Obama signed a law making it illegal to cultivate certain SARS strains in US labs. So Fauci and NIH collaborated to do that work in Wuhan China. So he really should have known more about this all along. Fauci is VERY complimentary to his Chinese hosts and colleagues. Why, I wonder, are ANY Americans allowed to work on bioweapons research in and with the CCP? Whether he made this specific strain or not, it is true he worked on viruses in a lab in Wuhan. Funny so few in media will acknowledge this. And where there’s a vacuum of news, then theories will be spun up to fill the void of facts.
Why is his entire history, and actions since 2015, not under media scrutiny? Is his role not critical enough to give us the true history? Should he do more magazine covers and baseball throws instead of enduring questions about his role in virology labs in China?
CNN aired the discredited hefty claim that hydroxychloroquine couldn't help COVID patients.
CNN aired the discredited hefty claim that Trump colluded with Russia.
Hadn't heard of this show, but Ima watch it for sure now. CNN labeling it a baseless conspiracy theory adds heft to the story, IMO.
I noticed they didn't attack the particulars of the story itself, just the messengers.
I think you need a new tag. The CNN meaning of hefty, which you find more credible, is ridiculous. No one thinks that the stronger a claim is the less evidence you need for it. No one thinks anything like that. No one thinks the claim that every single member of Congress is a robot controlled by a remote control in Trump's pocket requires less proof than the claim Roger Stone is a crook.
Interesting debate over the meaning of "hefty."
fat shaming!!!!! HOW DARE YOU!
It's being dispute that the NIH funded and assisted the Wuhan research center into bat originating viruses and "gain of use" research into how the viruses move between different animals.
I don't know the allegations in the video but the bit talked about here is admittedly true.
Our involvement with the Wuhan lab is factual; I believe under Obama we upped our financial assistance in the (vain) hope that the lab would then improve its security procedures. Seems a typical Obama administration kind of misjudgment.
The CNN aspect is already commented upon. It remains worrisome -- there's a softie word for it! -- that so much of our society demands conformity to the official line on everything. Everything except Trump.
Things are going to change. They've got to; so they will.
It's also beyond dispute the Wuhan lab had very serious safety issues that had been documented by the State Department.
Yet Fauci persisted.
I can't wait for the video of all the local TV anchors using the exact same language to describe it. it will be a weird coincidence I'm sure
Hefty is a word I've usually heard in reference to women. As in:
"You should go out with Darleen, she's pretty cool"
"Is she fat or thin?"
"Well, she's a little on the hefty side"
Hefty Farm Girls
Ken B said...
you mean; no one but democrats
“These allegations are both persistent and disturbing,” the two leaders said in a joint statement. “We have no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, but the seriousness of the allegations, and the weight of circumstantial information, compel an effort to establish the facts.”
Dr Fauci demonstrates why he's in charge of making sureno one catches anything.
Just the other day, I read a story which claimed Fauci authorized $30MM for a China Wuhan lab to do research on viruses. Apparently, that was his end run around a new law that prohibited the research from being done here.
algorithms always prefers cnn, ken, repetition creates the narrative, where did the nih, nhs french medical establishment monies go to, what was their result, it sounds suspiciously like mission impossible 2 or 3,
Big Mike explains: We know that Dr. Fauci, as head of NIH, directed research dollars to the lab in Wuhan where this novel coronavirus. This is well established, as is the fact that those research dollars were earmarked for research into novel viruses, said research having been banned by law from being conducted within the United States.
And here's a Newsweek article explaining just that and why 'gain of function' research is dangerous: LINK. But CNN would much prefer to ignore the known facts and target some lunatic fringe theory. So much easier, no?
why not michael fumento, he can give you chapter and verse, on how fauci has screwed up again and again,
"Hefty" derives from an obselete past particle of "heave." Germanic languages are full such pairwise combinations like thieve/ theft, leave/left, weave/weft, bereave/bereft, etc. I don't recall the grammatical term for such combinations.
I'm reminded of the truism, never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. There's probably plenty of discredit waiting to be aired on Fauci, but there's no need to make him out to be some kind of monster. He did his job, he made decisions that were probably reasonable in the conditions under which they were made, and some of them came back to haunt all of us. Neither Fauci nor China released this pandemic on purpose, but that may well have been how it got started. And that should be explored, without the finger pointing.
Balling does not challenge Mikovits in any noticeable way on the video. OTOH, the “discredited” claim is also suspect. Attempts to discredit her have focused on characterizing her as a crackpot based on her history. I have not seen any attempt to investigate thoroughly her claims about Fauci. A few cherry-picked rebuttals have surfaced. Mostly she is being smeared.
Sounds familiar.
...said the guy who thinks killing the entire economy should be shut down.
Extraordinary claim.
Extraordinary evidence.
Anna Applebaum is saying that letting TV stations air this is like fascism. Censorship would not be I suppose. TDS.
So Fauci and NIH collaborated to do that work in Wuhan China.
With Obama's approval and a Harvard professor's lead. This bears an uncanny resemblance to the modus operandi of the environmentalist lobbies and Green industries. Also, it explains Progressives' desperate need and defense of immigration reform (e.g. foreign student tuition) while there is a call to "stay at home, stay safe".
CNN aired the discredited hefty claim that hydroxychloroquine couldn't help COVID patients.
CNN aired ...
HCQ to mitigate infection, Zn to reduce viability, and AZ to control opportunistic pathogens. A disinfectant cocktail, that when administered early in viral evolution, can aid the body to control disease progression and systemic damage.
re: CNN
Reverse-psychology? To be fair, the modern threshold of scientific inquiry is now "plausible".
This is rubbish - just more standard right-wing conspiracy blathering. (I'm a conservative/libertarian Democrat hater who doesn't give a good GD about Fauci one way or the other, btw)
The $3.7 million pocket change involved here was a grant from Fauci's agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to the EcoHealth Alliance, "a non-governmental organization which employs a 'One Health' approach to protecting the health of people, animals, and the environment from emerging infectious diseases. The nonprofit is a global organization focused on scientific research that aims to prevent pandemics and promote conservation in hotspot regions worldwide." It was not a grant to Wuhan Institute of Virology, which only received a trickle down portion of it.
And it was not money Fauci "gave" to the Chinese. Fauci doesn't write multimillion government checks to anyone; someone higher up does that. Fauci simply approved the grant to EcoHealth Alliance. Approving grants, especially for legitimate study such as EcoHealth Alliance conducts, is solidly within his agency's purview and is a big part of his job.
We of course need scapegoats in this pandemic and for its consequences, and there will be no shortage of them, selected primarily on the basis of the particular scapegoater's political bias. It became clear to me fairly early on in the COVID saga that Anthony Fauci was going to be one of them. And in his case it is because it became known that he was a Hillary Clinton supporter and so the right wing saw red and selected him. Bullshit. Of course he is a government bureaucrat, with all the foibles of that breed. But he is at his core a freakin' doctor who has devoted his life to killing lethal viruses and, hello, preventing pandemics.
When it comes to trash bags I think they are conflating 'Hefty' with 'Strong.'
They can hold a lot of trash and the bags will be heavy, but they also won't break...
hey Johnathan Winters--
...cant you see I'm trying to read this??
John Henry @ 8:30: Thanks for the link, Ima gonna go there also.
I guess CNN is not familiar with the Streisand Effect.
No offense, but this comes across as a spoof of an Althouse post.
I agree with Mockturtle that this is a true story except the conspiracy is unproven. The questions include whether the "escape" from the lab was accidental or deliberate.
Having watched the "Plandemic" piece, I have to say:
(1) Cannot second-guess the science, much of which is presented in such an abbreviated and simplistic form (Immunology For Idiots) that it is almost beyond criticism. So it goes with compressed messaging to a wide audience whose grip on science is by definition not so great.
(2) Her rant about Bayh-Dole is IMHO unfortunate. Yeah, I worked in the biotech world and we saw B-D as a key driver of innovation and fast tech uptake: because, excuse me, you can't hope to build the future without enough money to survive a lot of trial and error. Private capital only flows to stuff that can be protected --to an extent, for a fixed time-- from theft. This doctor is probably awesome on stuff in her area but I don't think her command of IP/innovation policy and practice is sufficient. Alternatively, she is right, the whole game is utterly rigged by a cabal of fat cats in a smoke-filled room, and we are far more screwed than I ever imagined.
(3) Overall, I think the vid is worth a look. Unclear what led to her professional undoing a decade or so ago. Much half-hinted intrigue. Does this thing fairly indict Fauci? I don't think it's absurd, but in fact Fauci has shot himself in the foot already. His shifty (and therefore largely useless) advice and his general CYA obsession with control control control, are obvious to all. He has no conception of the damage being done to the economy and society.
/rant
Oh, you need timin'
A tick, a tick, a tick, good timin'
A tock, a tock, a tock, a tock
A timin' is the thing ... its true
Fauci: ‘Bizarre’ White House Behavior Only Hurts the President
The nation’s top public-health expert tells The Atlantic that he isn’t going anywhere, despite the Trump administration’s newest attempts to undercut him.
is the MSM "Streisand Effect"-ing themselves in the nuts
...by trying to steer the narrative all the time?
as we posted weeks ago, Mikovitz and Lokhova are 2 women maligned
As to the use of "hefty", they are both right in that it does mean weighty, or substantial, but he was using it in a way that challenged it - a kinda of sarcasm, as in your example: "That's a mighty big claim you're making,..."
CNN is dong what they do. They pretend quotes to be literal or not depending on what they need to use it for. They know exactly what he meant by it. It's a mild challenge, but pretending he was substantiating it is just lying by CNN, again.
serious question
does 'discredited' mean: we don't want people to think this is true?
'cause i haven't seen much to DISPROVE these assertions
If you're looking to take down Fauci, skip the dopey conspiracy theories and ask him why he failed to ensure an American stockpile of masks after the first SARS outbreak seventeen years ago.
Blogger Big Mike said...
We know that Dr. Fauci, as head of NIH...
No; I don’t “know” that, because Dr. Fauci has never, ever been the “head of NIH.”
I was subjected to hours of "reefer madness" bullshit as a young schoolkid. Still turned out pothead. The skeptical people will watch skeptically; the stupid and easily led will be - stupid and easily led.
Planned Parent in multiple Democrat jurisdictions has not been discredited. Neither has spreading social contagion, nor denying prophylactic treatment to control disease progression and increase individual viability.
Chuck is correct for a change. Dr. Anthony is "merely" the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), but only for the past 36 years.
Gaslighting will only serve to pique interest in the conspiracy theories. Calling Trump crazy and his administration 'bizarre' may convince a lot of gullible people but there are certain facts that are being glossed over by the media and by the 'experts' in charge. Just as there are unanswered questions related to facts about Epstein's jail cell 'suicide' and the Las Vegas shootings. But let's not let facts get in the way of a good narrative. No, that wouldn't do.
Commentator Ice Nine is technically correct that Fauci did not personally write the checks -- the checks are issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. However as head of NIAID he could and did authorize disbursement of research funds, and in the Washington, DC, metro area this is called "writing a check for" whatever the purpose of the disbursement is supposed to be.
Fact-checking Judy Mikovits, the controversial virologist attacking Anthony Fauci in a viral conspiracy video
Ice Nine said...
But he is at his core a freakin' doctor who has devoted his life to killing lethal viruses and, hello, preventing pandemics.
Oh aye? If so (and IMHO researcher is not a doctor doctor), then the trouble is, he's no good at it.
I was first introduced to Judy Mikovits's views several weeks ago. I immediately got the sense she was a crackpot, not worthy of further consideration.
My current view of Fauci, which dates back to the early years of AIDS is that he is an MD who learned to speak Bureaucratese and play footsie with "the right people", got a cushy job with the government, and has been there ever since, probably stifling medical innovation one way or another.
Suddenly Pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcasting appears as the new headline in the "Plandemic" attack on Dr. Fauci.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Sinclair Broadcast Group said Saturday it is pulling from the air an edition of its “America This Week” program that discusses a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus.
Way back in 2018, Deadspin reported "how America's largest local TV owner [Sinclair Broadcasting] turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump's war on the media."
Heres a twist
https://mobile.twitter.com/GordonGChang/status/1287011318155943936
No contemporary English speaker thinks "liftable" when they see "hefty." The company itself implies, through its ads that it the opposite of "wimpy."
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) led by Dr. Fauci for the last 36 tears did more than give $3.5 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It also funded Zheng-Li Shi the leading corona virus researcher for years. Every article she wrote which funded by NIAID acknowledges that funding as required by law. Such acknowledgements look like this:
2018 Serological Evidence of Bat SARS-Related Coronavirus Infection in Humans, China
"This study was jointly funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant (81290341) to ZLS [ZLS is Zheng-Li Shi]; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (Award Number R01AI110964) to PD and ZLS [ZLS is Zheng-Li Shi], United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT project Grant (Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-A-14-00102) to PD; and Singapore NRF-CRP Grant (NRF2012NRF-CRP001–056) and CD-PHRG Grant (CDPHRG/0006/2014) to LFW."
So the NAIAD led by Dr. Fauci was sponsoring virus research in China along with many other scientific institutes from various nations. Research to develop a virus or combat it would be exactly the same. The research was banned in the US because viruses were escaping due to carelessness and I believe the same thing happened in Wuhan. Dr. Fauci should have been more forthcoming about what he funded when he was appealed to as an authority but he was silent. Bad optics, but I expect he know what would be said and ran from the issue. He might not even have realized that his funding of Zheng-Li Shi could be traced. He was sixty before the Internet made it possible and seventy before it was inevitable.
PS This article has the following depressing statement relating to reinfection:
"Coronaviruses are known to have a high mutation rate during replication and are prone to recombination if different viruses infect the same individual (Knipe et al. 2013). From our previous studies of bat SARSr-CoVs in the two caves near these villages, we have found genetically highly diverse bat SARSr-CoVs and evidence of frequent coinfection of two or more different SARSr-CoVs in the same bat (Ge et al. 2013)."
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