The Press-Dispatch

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 The Press-Dispatch D-3 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Your letter must include your name, address, phone number and email. No anonymous letters will be printed. The Press Dispatch strives to provide an open forum for all opinions. However, we reserve the right to reject letters. Submit your letter to the Editor by Friday at Noon. Email: sherri@pressdispatch.net Race for the Cure By Star Parker Biden supports Republicans in blocking D.C. crime bill President Joe Biden announced he will not veto a resolution passed by the republican-controlled house which overturns a new district of co- lumbia crime reform law, assuming the resolution passes in the senate. The district is under federal juris- diction, so congress can over- turn d.c. legislation. But this is the first time in 30 years that it has hap- pened. now a shell- shocked chair of the left-wing d.c. city council says he's pulling the bill, which reduces sentencing on many felonies, including carjackings and burglaries, as it heads for defeat in a senate vote still scheduled to occur. you are justified in rubbing your eyes in disbelief that Biden has sided with republicans. even more so that this goes against the grain of dem- ocrats who support home rule, free- ing d.c. from federal jurisdiction. The liberal online journal slate ran a headline saying the president "stabbed d.c.in the back." But Biden remains in touch with political reality. nBc news reported in early Janu- ary that the new year started off with a notable spike in crime in d.c. com- pared to the same period the year be- fore. Thefts from cars were report- ed up 30%, car thefts up 113%, rob- beries up 57% and overall property crime up 42%. Per The Washington Post, police records show that in the first two months of 2023, d.c. homicides were up 34% compared to the same peri- od in 2022. Just a few weeks ago, democrat- ic rep. angie craig was attacked in- side an elevator in the d.c. building where she resides. she succeeded in escaping the assailant, who physical- ly assaulted her, by throwing her hot morning coffee on him. Per craig, "I got attacked by some- one who the district of columbia has not prosecuted fully over the course of almost a decade, over the course of 12 assaults before mine that morn- ing." Biden's fine-tuned political nose detects the fragrance of an upcom- ing election year, and he has plenty to worry about. he enjoyed a 57% percent approval rating per Gallup in the early months of his presidency. But by the end of 2021, he was down to 42% and has hovered around there since. Particularly bad news for the pres- ident is that, per Gallup, his latest ap- proval rating on dealing with econ- omy is 34%. Per polling in February from Pew research, the issue of most concern to americans is the economy, with 75% saying "strengthening the econ- omy" should be the number one pri- ority of the president and congress. and per Gallup, only 25% of those polled are satisfied with the state of the economy. crime is also a priority issue and here also americans are not pleased. Only 27% say they are satisfied with "the nation's policies to reduce or control crime." surely, Biden also had an eye on the mayoral election in chicago. There incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot was decisively ousted by voters, getting just 17% of the vote in a field of nine candidates. This was the first time in 40 years that an in- cumbent mayor in chicago failed in a reelection bid. and a hot issue in chicago is the dismal state of affairs regarding crime. Per the Wall street Journal, "There were more than 800 murders in chicago in 2021, the most in a quarter-century. The homicide rate dropped 14% in 2022, but remained nearly 40% higher than in 2019." so why did Biden play ball with republicans on the d.c. crime bill? Political instincts conquer all. Biden and his party are weak on the two is- sues voters give highest priority to - - the economy and crime. Our president is trying to sur- vive. his refusal to veto the republi- can-led resolution on the d.c. crime bill was his way of saying that things are looking good for republicans in 2024. Star Parker is president of the Cen- ter for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Heritage Viewpoint By Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D. Key questions for new House subcommittee on Coronavirus pandemic It's no longer a "conspiracy theo- ry." There's growing evidence that cOVId-19 probably originated in a lab in Wuhan, china, and not from a viral transmis- sion from an animal to a human in nature. The Wall street Journal reports, based on the most recent in- telligence, such is the considered judgment of senior analysts at the U.s. department of energy, as well as at the FBI. If true, that chinese lab leak unleashed a deadly global pandemic that killed nearly 7 million people, including more than 1.1 million americans. communist chinese officials insisted the pandemic originated in "nature." Their stubborn refus- al to cooperate with international research teams to provide relevant information has hindered the pro- duction of definitive evidence con- cerning the pandemic's origins. Beijing has instead perpetuated conflict and division within scien- tific and governmental circles in the West. In February 2020, the World health Organization, which faced restricted access to the Wu- han lab, nonetheless concluded that the coronavirus had a natu- ral origin. In 2021, President Joe Biden's Office of national Intelli- gence report on the pandemic's or- igins was inconclusive. among sci- entists, the debate on the origins remains unresolved. Given the pandemic's massive death and economic destruction (an estimated $10 trillion), con- gress must pursue an inquiry into cOVId-19's origins. as difficult as it will prove to be, that probe must be aggressive and deep. congress must not only deter- mine what federal officials knew, and when they knew what they knew, but also correct any deficien- cies in america's response to pre- pare for the next public health cri- sis. as analysts with the Govern- ment accountability Office ob- serve, "This understanding could help inform preparation and re- sponse to future epidemics and pandemics." The select subcommittee on the coronavirus Pandemic of the house of representatives, chaired by rep. Brad Wenstrup, r-Ohio, will soon hold its first public hear- ings on the topic. The subcom- mittee should not only summon energy department and FBI an- alysts to testify on their recent assessments, but also officials of the state department who issued a similar assessment of the origins of cOVId-19 during the early stag- es of the pandemic in april 2020. examining five potential sce- narios, state department officials then concluded, "There is no di- rect, smoking gun evidence to prove that a leak from Wuhan labs caused the pandemic, but there is circumstantial evidence to sug- gest such is the case." state de- partment officials then further not- ed that chinese authorities sealed off the Wuhan lab in January 2020, and huang yanling, a lab employee rumored to be "patient zero," dis- appeared. DEBUNKING 'CONSPIRACY THEORY' Beginning on Jan. 3, 2020, chi- nese communist officials, while insisting on the natural origin of the coronavirus, forbade the re- lease of any information related to the pandemic without government approval. nonetheless, ameri- ca's top federal pub- lic health officials, national Institutes of health director Francis collins and dr. anthony Fauci, seemed morally cer- tain that cOVId-19 had a natural origin and nIh-funded sci- entists fell into line. For example: On March 7, 2020, The Lancet, a pres- tigious British medical journal, published a remarkable letter pro- claiming "solidarity" with chinese colleagues combating cOVId-19 and decrying "conspiracy theo- ries" that hinder international co- operation. The letter was signed by 26 scientists, including Peter daszak, president of ecohealth al- liance, the firm that had worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and had received $8 mil- lion in american taxpayer funding. On March 17, 2020, nature Med- icine, a professional journal, pub- lished an article concluding that the novel coronavirus was not a "laboratory construct." That arti- cle was signed by six scientists, in- cluding dr. Kristian andersen of the scripps research Institute, an- other recipient of substantial nIh funding. On March 26, 2020, nIh chief collins followed up with a blog post, highlighting the March 17 nature Medicine article, and con- demning "outrageous" claims that the novel coronavirus was engi- neered in a lab. Following this aggressive public relations offensive, in an april 2020 email, collins told Fauci that they still had to find some way to "put down this very destructive con- spiracy." collins warned that the emergence of the "lab leak" theory could damage "science and inter- national harmony." Fauci respond- ed that the lab leak theory was a "shiny object" that would fade with time. 'GAIN OF FUNCTION' CONTROVERSY Viral "gain of function" re- search—that is, research that ge- netically engineers a virus to make it more lethal and more transmissi- ble—is a critical piece of the puz- zle. In sworn testimony before the senate last year, Fauci steadfast- ly denied that nIh funded "gain of function" research in china. In recent sworn testimony before the house of representatives, dr. Law- rence Tabak also denied that nIh had funded such research. yet, the april 2020 state de- partment memo makes clear: dr. shi Zheng Li—the so-called Bat Woman of china—"conducted ge- netic engineering of bat virus to make it easily transmissible to hu- mans." shi functioned as a "sub- contractor" of ecohealth alliance, the firm that had gotten substan- tial grant funding from nIh and al- so collaborated with dr. ralph Bar- ic of the University of north caro- lina, as well as other scientists, on research (reviewed by the nIh) in- to the potential of bat coronavirus- es to infect humans. KEY QUESTIONS From a practical perspective, lawmakers drilling down on the pandemic's origins need to enlist the assistance of scientists who specialize in evolutionary virolo- gy in assessing the evidence. They must also call prominent indepen- dent virologists, especially those who have been publicly engaged on the issue, to provide congres- sional testimony. Furthermore, lawmakers must also determine what role, if any, that federal officials may have played in funding research that might have contributed to the pan- demic. among the key questions: • If the novel coronavirus emerged in nature, is there any hard evidence of any animal hav- ing sars -coV-2 before the first cases of human infection? • With the shutdown of any in- formation coming out of commu- nist china without government ap- proval on Jan. 3, 2020, how could federal health officials—particu- larly collins and Fauci—be mor- ally certain that the pandemic was not the product of a lab leak? had they come into possession of any scientifically verifiable evidence since January 2020 to support such a conclusion? • What new evidence did scripps' andersen and robert Garry of Tulane Medical school, both of whom expressed strong skepticism about the natural ori- gins of the coronavirus to nIh offi- cials, have in their possession that caused them to change their initial assessment? • did either collins or Fauci, or anyone on their staffs, suggest, en- courage, provide comments to, or review the multiple authors' corre- spondence in The Lancet or the ar- ticle in nature Medicine? • how many of the 26 authors of The Lancet correspondence, or the six authors of the nature Med- icine article, had then been recipi- ents of nIh grant funding? • Given nIh's poor oversight, plus the failure of ecohealth al- liance to provide nIh with time- ly information on the Wuhan ex- periments, as rep. debbie Lesko, r-ariz., has observed, how could federal officials know for sure that there was no taxpayer funding of "gain of function" research? • When nIh officials were de- bunking the lab leak theory as a "conspiracy theory" in april 2020, were they also aware that state de- partment personnel had arrived at a very different conclusion at roughly the same time? Given the gravity of the subject, was there sufficient interagency communica- tion? Was the White house made aware of these divergent assess- ments among career civil serv- ants? as for Fauci's "shiny object," it just got brighter. If top nIh officials and their media allies had hoped to dismiss the laboratory origins of the novel coronavirus as a silly "conspiracy theory," they clearly failed. Bolstered by new intelligence, analysts at the department of en- ergy and at the FBI have rein- forced the initial assessment of state department personnel made three years ago: The "circumstan- tial evidence" indicated that the pandemic emerged from a lab. congress must keep digging. Robert Moffit specializes in health care and entitlement programs, es- pecially Medicare. Letter to the Editor I was able to present my concerns about the trash and filth that some people have to deal with because of their neighbors here in Pike county to the commissioners at their monthly meeting. Petersburg has a city ordinance that monitors and controls the proper- ties inside the city limits, but the rest of the county is without, posing the problems that exists. I pleaded with the commissioners to put into place, a county-wide or- dinance that would allow people to send a formal complaint to the health department if a property needed to be cleaned up and the property then would be assessed and a warning sent out. If the property was not cleaned up a fine would be issued. If then it still was not taken care of the county would have it cleaned up and the cost would be attached to their property taxes. In turn if taxes are not paid the property would go up for tax sale and the county could take ownership. If people would just take pride in their homes and properties it would benefit us all. however, it is not right that residents who value their homes have to put up with the trash and clutter of an unkept property that devalues their investment. I do not want Pike county to become a free fall of trashed properties so please contact your commissioner and back them in putting in place this ordinance to keep our county safe and beautiful. I believe if there was a task force of a commissioner, a councilman, a dep- uty, a representative from the health department and a representative from the highway department and from the community, we could make progress in making this become a reality. Please help me in voicing your concern. deb Troutman concerned citizen

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