ENCORE! COVID origin declassified, Freedom Is the Answer, John Stockton, COVID mandates rejected, Mask defiance, Athlete deaths, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam RIP, Science trust, Dr. Pierre Kory, War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic, SVB Bank failure and MORE!
April 17th, 2022 3-5PM ET
ENCORE!
Monday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:
House votes unanimously to declassify information about origins of COVID-19, sending bill to President Biden The House of Representatives on Friday unanimously voted to declassify information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Covid-19 pandemic, sending the bill to President Joe Biden. The Senate also voted unanimously earlier this month to require Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify such information. Covid first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019, though it’s still unknown how the virus spread to people. Scientists have clashed for years over whether Covid came from an infected animal that transmitted the virus to humans, or whether the pathogen escaped from a lab in Wuhan. The effort by Congress to declassify intelligence on the origins of Covid comes after the Energy Department concluded with “low confidence” that the virus most likely escaped from a lab in Wuhan as the result of an accident. The Energy Department is one of 18 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The department was previously undecided on how the virus emerged. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also concluded that the pandemic likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, the agency’s director, Christopher Wray, told Fox News earlier this month. “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.” “I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everybody,” Wray said.
Regardless of Virus Origins, Freedom Is the Answer As seemingly everyone who’s been following the political tragedy that was and is the coronavirus well knows, the Department of Energy now confirms with a low level of confidence that the virus was inadvertently leaked from a lab in China. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps understandably, this conclusion has many gloating. Figure that Anthony Fauci and other despicable, attention-seeking authoritarians not too long ago dismissed the very notion of a lab leak as the stuff of mouth-breathing conspiracy theorists. Fauci et al deserve our immense scorn, period. At the same time, this focus on the origins of the virus is a total distraction that politicians, scientists and doctors (including Fauci) have to be loving. Please read on. But first let’s travel back in time a bit. In doing so, let’s not forget that politicians and bureaucrats associated with government were the very people who panicked and demanded that Americans have their freedom and work taken from them in 2020 as a virus-mitigation strategy. Those gloating might keep this in mind as they revel in the Energy Department’s soft conclusion. In other words, who seriously cares what the salary-men and women at the DoE think? What a mistake to embrace the thinking of self-proclaimed experts when their conclusions match what some in the anti-lockdown community think.
Special Guest John Stockton
His number is retired, a street in Salt Lake City is named for him, and there is a statue of his likeness outside the arena where he played his entire NBA career. All this lends testimony to the extraordinary career of Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton, a throwback player who brought his hard-nosed, all-business approach to every game he ever played. Stockton was “old school” in every sense and that style suited him well for 19 seasons, including 17 in which he played every game on the schedule. He was a ten-time All Star, led the league in assists a record nine consecutive seasons, and holds the single-season record for assists with 1,164. At the time of his retirement, Stockton held the NBA career record for assists and steals with 15,806 and 3,265 respectively. The gritty Stockton led the Jazz to the playoffs each of his 19 seasons and won gold medals at both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.
Basketball Great John Stockton Tells RFK, Jr. Why He Took a Stand on COVID Mandates Basketball Great John Stockton Tells RFK, Jr. Why He Took a Stand on COVID Mandates In an exclusive interview with basketball great John Stockton on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Stockton discussed masks, COVID vaccines and the general state of pandemic policies. Kennedy called Stockton “one of the greatest basketball players of all time, an NBA legend, named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history.” Kennedy added: “[Stockton] continues to hold the record for most assists and steals by wide margins. He won gold medals in 92 and 96 on the U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team. His entire NBA career was as a point guard for the Utah jazz and the team made the playoffs in each of its 19 seasons.” Officials at Stockton’s alma mater, Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, last month told Stockton they needed to suspend his basketball season tickets because Stockton refused to wear a mask during games he attended as a spectator. Stockton said university officials told him, “We can’t have you not wearing a mask.”
John Stockton’s defiance of COVID-19 mask mandate forces Gonzaga to suspend NBA Hall of Famer’s basketball season tickets On any night, John Stockton’s name and No. 12 jersey can be seen hanging from a banner in the south-facing rafters at McCarthey Athletic Center. But Gonzaga and its most prominent alumnus are at odds over the school’s mask mandate, leading Gonzaga to suspend Stockton’s season tickets at home basketball games. In an interview with The Spokesman-Review on Saturday at The Warehouse – the Spokane-based gym Stockton has owned since 2002 – the NBA’s all-time assists and steals leader, and one of only two players who’s had his number retired by Gonzaga, confirmed the university’s decision to suspend his season tickets for failing to comply with the mask mandate. Stockton said Gonzaga Athletic Director Chris Standiford notified him of the university’s decision in a conversation the Naismith Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame point guard described as “congenial” but also “not pleasant.” “Basically, it came down to, they were asking me to wear a mask to the games and being a public figure, someone a little bit more visible, I stuck out in the crowd a little bit,” Stockton said. “And therefore they received complaints and felt like from whatever the higher-ups – those weren’t discussed, but from whatever it was higher up – they were going to have to either ask me to wear a mask or they were going to suspend my tickets.”
Why Aren’t We Investigating Surge in Sudden Deaths of Athletes? With every passing day, the list of people suffering tragic consequences from the COVID mRNA shots grows longer. Data show 23,149 people have died after a COVID jab as of Jan. 28. There also are 13,575 reports of people with Bell’s palsy, 41,163 who are permanently disabled, 31,185 with myocarditis, 11,765 who have had heart attacks and 3,903 women who have lost their babies after getting the shots. Many of these people and their stories have remained hidden from public view. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms have censored the personal stories and videos of individuals documenting their injuries and permanent disabilities, so those who only read mainstream media are unaware of the overwhelming damage being done in the name of science. However, there is a population of people whose injuries and death have been made public. In the past six months, a slew of professional and amateur athletes have collapsed and died on the field. Yet, mainstream media appear to take this in stride, acting as if what is happening is completely normal. But, as described by Matt Le Tissier in the first seconds of the video above, this is far from normal. Le Tissier was a soccer legend (a sport called football in the UK). His prowess on the field earned him the nickname “Le God” before leaving the sport to become a sports commentator, most recently with Sky Sports.
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the Iconic ‘Father of Cannabis,’ Dies at 92 Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the scientific giant and pioneer who first studied the effects of the cannabis plant and synthesized THC, has died at the age of 92 in his home in Israel, according to an announcement by American Friends of the Hebrew University. His passing is as monumental as it was unexpected and the reaction has been swift from all corners of the cannabis industry, an industry his unprecedented scientific findings made possible in the first place. The Bulgarian-born scientist was arrested early in his career for carrying five kilos of what he called “superb smuggled Lebanese hashish” while on a bus in Tel Aviv. Dr. Mechoulam had the hash in his possession to analyze, not to smoke. Though the epic journey of this scientific giant began rather auspiciously, the soon-to-be icon wouldn’t be interrupted by anything else on his determined quest for answers surrounding the powerful plant. Dr. Mechoulam’s twin historic findings he led with his research team at Hebrew University School of Pharmacy included isolating THC, the psychoactive component found in all cannabis plants, as well as CBD or cannabidiol, the prevalent and active ingredient in cannabis with a wide array of medicinal and curative benefits. Dr. Mechoulam’s findings cannot be understated for their undeniable significance, thus his well-earned moniker as the “Father of Cannabis.”
Hour 2
Science Is Not to Be Trusted Science is probably not what you think it is, and that’s okay. As we can still love our parents when we stop seeing them as infallible God-like “adults” and learn about their full humanity, we see science as a messy process and still love it as beautiful and capable of revolutionizing our society. Most people learn about science in school as a compendium of facts about the universe. Heat causes liquids to boil and turn into gases. Electric currents can move along a copper wire. DNA encodes the information that makes living organisms what they are. While many of those facts are true (or more accurately, there is no evidence yet giving reason to doubt them), viewing science as an encyclopedia is misleading; it prevents the public from interfacing with the front-lines of science, and thereby inhibits the ability of science to inform the public in a time of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Science is anything but constant and monolithic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the public saw inside the sausage factory of modern science and puked. Did masks work, or did they not? Were school closures effective at saving lives or not? Did vaccines provide long-lasting protection against infection? Did SARS-CoV-2 emerge in a lab? What was sold to the public as The Science one day became misinformation the next, and vice versa.
Special Guest Dr. Pierre Kory
Pierre Kory is the former Chief of the Critical Care Service and Medical Director of the Trauma and Life Support Center at the University of Wisconsin. He is considered one of the world pioneers in the use of ultrasound by physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of critically ill patients. He helped develop and run the first national courses in Critical Care Ultrasonography in the U.S. and served as a director of these courses with the American College of Chest Physicians for several years. He is also the senior editor of the most popular textbook in the field titled “Point of Care Ultrasound,” now in its 2nd edition and that has been translated into 7 languages worldwide. He has led over 100 courses nationally and internationally, teaching physicians this now-standard skill in his specialty.
Dr. Kory was also one of the U.S. pioneers in the research, development, and teaching of performing therapeutic hypothermia to treat post-cardiac arrest patients. In 2005, his hospital was the first in New York City to begin regularly treating patients with therapeutic hypothermia. He then served as an expert panel member for New York City’s Project Hypothermia, a collaborative project between the Fire Department of New York and Emergency Medical Services. This project created cooling protocols within a network of 44 regional hospitals – along with a triage and transport system that directed patients to centers of excellence in hypothermia treatment – of which his hospital was one of the first.
Known as a Master Educator, Dr. Kory has won numerous departmental and divisional teaching awards in every hospital he has worked. He has delivered hundreds of courses and invited lectures throughout his career.
In collaboration with Dr. Paul Marik, Dr. Kory pioneered the research and treatment of septic shock patients with high doses of intravenous ascorbic acid. His work was the first to identify the critical relationship between the time of initiation of therapy and survival in septic shock patients – an aspect of the therapy that led to understanding all the failed randomized controlled trials that employed delayed therapy.
Dr. Kory has led ICUs in multiple COVID-19 hotspots throughout the pandemic. Having led his old ICU in New York City during their initial surge in May for 5 straight weeks, he then travelled to other COVID-19 hotspots to run COVID ICU’s in Greenville, South Carolina and Milwaukee, WI during their surges. He has co-authored 5 influential papers on COVID-19, with the most impactful being a paper that was the first to support the diagnosis of early COVID-19 respiratory disease as an organizing pneumonia, thus explaining the critical response of the disease to corticosteroids.
Where Is Occupy Silicon Valley? Bank failures tend to come in waves, and we are experiencing at least a mini-wave now. Banks fail for three basic reasons: 1. Credit transformation: deterioration in borrower creditworthiness, usually due to an adverse economic shock (e.g., a real estate bust). 2. Maturity transformation: borrowing short, lending long, and then getting hammered when interest rates rise. 3. Liquidity transformation combined with an exogenous liquidity shock, a la Diamond-Dybvig, where idiosyncratic depositor needs for cash lead to withdrawals that exceed liquid assets and therefore trigger fire sales of illiquid assets. The two most notable failures of late–Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate–are examples of 2 and 3 respectively. In some respects, SVB is the most astounding. Not because a bank failed in the old-fashioned way, but because it was funded primarily by the deposits of supposed financial sophisticates–and because of the disgusting policy response of the Treasury and the Fed. SVB took in oodles of cash, especially in the past couple of years. The cashcade was so immense that SVB could not find enough traditional banking business (loans) to soak it up, so they bought lots of Treasuries. And long duration Treasuries to boot. And then Powell and the Fed applied the boot, jacking up rates. Bonds have cratered in the last year, and took SVB’s balance sheet with it.
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