Protesters are setting out to wreck Trump’s inauguration. I don’t think these guys realize just how badly outnumbered they will be by the Trumpsters. It could be that they simply (a) don’t know anyone who voted Trump and (b) actually believe that DNC garbage about how Hillary actually won save for Russian hacking.
Just to give a flavor of what we’re up against – regarding Jeff Session’s nomination for Attorney General, the Democrat leadership has pretty much convinced their base voters that Sessions is a Klansman. Think about that – the man who once worked diligently to put the head of the Klan to death is being accused of Klan loyalty. This is what we’re up against, folks – people who will lie brazenly, and people who will eagerly swallow whatever lie is presented to them. As an aside, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ, But Really Lives in NY) is using the Sessions confirmation hearing to launch his 2020 Presidential bid.
Why smart people were never, #NeverTrump – Congress to take up national reciprocity bill for concealed carry. Had Hilly won, this would never even get started.
We’ve had this as a subject recently – Trump may be consulting anti-vaxxers. My bit of Libertarianism does allow me to support parental opt-out in some cases. Personally, I think the anti-vaccine crusade is about as valid as the anti-GMO crusade…based upon anecdote rather than evidence. But people must have the right to live as they wish – and parents are ultimately responsible to God, not the State, for the raising of their children. However, diseases with high mortality rates which can be vaccinated against must be vaccinated against…and even for low mortality rate diseases, there might be a necessity, at times, for large-scale vaccinations. Clearly, a lot of issues will be tackled from a different angle over the next four to eight years…and as long as the people are regularly consulted on what is done, there should be no long-term harm in it.
The anti-Israel (and, often, flat out anti-Semitic) Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement just had a major failure – it is to be hoped that we’ll soon inter the whole idea, for good.
Our Progressive friends are arguing about who is Most Oppressed – pass the popcorn as this goes on. It was thought by some that after the 2016 disaster, the Progressives would at least mute their identity politics program…they haven’t, and looks like they won’t.
Gay Patriot unearths this cry of despair from a Prog:
A vote cast for Trump is kind of like a murder; there may be context to consider — a disadvantaged background, extenuating circumstances, understandable motives — but the choice itself is binary and final, irrevocable. There’s a case to be made that it’s indefensible; that his supporters have forfeited any right to be respected or taken seriously.
Turns out, now that Obama is leaving office, there isn’t a lot of demand for Progressive liberal arts grads and they’ve got the sads about it. Please try not to laugh too much when you read that link – we have a duty to be kind to our Progressive friends.
This guy allegedly committed a murder:
Gomez has worked at the Alliance for Climate Education, a climate alarmist activist group. In 2014, he spoke at a climate event with Governor Jerry Brown, billionaire climate change activist Tom Steyer, and University of California system President Janet Napolitano, former governor of Arizona and Homeland Security secretary under President Obama.
Getting into a fight at recess could send a kid to jail. I got in a fight at recess. Twice. Once I ended it by punching the other kid in the stomach. The other time, the other guy ended it by clocking me in the eye (I had quite a shiner for a few days). In neither case was anyone sent to jail and we all grew up and lived our lives as if nothing had happened.
As long as we’re on the subject of just who is the Putin Puppet, there is a good chance that the anti-Frackers are in that group. The last thing Russia and OPEC want is for the United States to fully exploit it’s energy resources…same reason the rest of the world doesn’t want us fully exploiting our manufacturing, mining and agricultural potential…if we did, we’d crush the global competition. We really do live in the Land of Plenty, folks – we’re slopping over with resources human and material and if we ever decide to go flat out, everyone will be buying from us. The rest of the world doesn’t want that because it affects their bottom line (temporarily, of course…they’d soon get the benefit of American production bringing prices down for all manner of goods)…our domestic Progressives don’t like us because rich America is an America which doesn’t need Progressives.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds notes a rather large problem we’ve got:
So the problem here is that you can call for an investigation, but who do you trust to investigate? The news media? The national security bureaucracy? Congress? All of them have gone out of their way to prove themselves untrustworthy. That’s not a good thing, but it’s reality.
The first major news outfit which will declare and enforce a policy of only reporting what can be verified as true, will win this battle. No more anonymous sources; no more writing the articles to put a spin on the information; no more burying the lede – back in World War Two, General Stillwell, in command of the China-Burma-India theater, was asked what he would allow in the Army newspaper; he said, “if you can prove it, print it”. That’s all there is about it – if it isn’t proven, it isn’t news. Speculation belongs in the editorial pages, as do polemics. The news is what happened that can be verified, nothing more and nothing less.
The juicy story is the life-blood of the news media – we understand that; if it bleeds, it leads. At bottom, the MSM is always waiting for the next Watergate or Profumo scandal. Click on that link about Profumo – that was just wonderful stuff for news…it had illicit sex, possible espionage and a senior member of government lying about it in Parliament. That is the sort of thing MSMers live to uncover…but the thing about the Profumo scandal is that it was all true, and could be verified as true. It wasn’t a report from anonymous sources saying that they heard Profumo was doing wrong…sure, it probably started with such things, but then the MSMers went out and confirmed it…viola! Great story, resignations from government, the party involved defeated at the next election. For an MSMer, what more can you want? And the kicker was that by reporting on it, the MSM of the day did a public service…it was bad what Profumo was doing, possibly risking the safety of the people of Britain. But if all you got is a guy who won’t even attach his name to the story, then all you’ve got is rumor-mongering…and if you report on that as if it were news, rather than rumor, then your credibility will be shot when it is revealed you’ve got nothing. And so it has gone…and not just gone with the MSM, but also the bureaucracy and Congress. In the urge to harm an opponent, all three have destroyed their own credibility by reporting rumors, most of which later turned out to be false.
Get your credibility back, MSM – only report the verified truth.
Blogs For Victory 
This next ten days may reveal if the Left is truly committed or just a bunch of pussies. I’d bet on the latter.
I’ll go with you – of course, today the left did try to revive some oppo research about Trump being a Putin stooge…this time with salacious details added.
I think it was Charles Krauthamer on Fox tonight who said he thinks the U.S. and Russian intelligence agencies are in a pissing match and both doing what they do best — LYING. I find it more than a little interesting that Trump doesn’t seem to think that the intelligence reports are not true, or at least not accurate. The other day he made what sounded like an off-hand, idle comment about knowing more than the CIA (or something like that). It could be just typical Trump braggadocio, but I wouldn’t find it much of a reach to speculate that Trump has his own security people who are probably more competent than many of the government types — and probably less constricted by ideology and politics. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall during some of the high level meetings on both sides?
As much as I’m not afraid of the Left on a personal level, they have shown they have no compunction about inflicting damage on the country when it suits their goals. I’ll breathe much easier if we’re all still in one piece on January 21st.
One of the most ardent #NeverTrump people, Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson), Tweeted out this yesterday:
I don’t think Mr. Wilson understands that in a war between the President and any bureaucracy, the President wins – if he decides to engage in the fight. The thing about all GOP Administrations since the time of Reagan is that they’ve never gone after the bureaucracy, even when it was clear that the bureaucracy was sabotaging Presidential policy (the whole Valerie Plame kerfuffle was just that – a couple bureaucrats decided to undermine Administration policy). Governor Walker, in Wisconsin, understood that reform was not possible as long as the bureaucracy remained as it was and was immune to curbing by the Executive…so, he curbed it; and got his reforms through. And, what happened? Things are going splendidly in Wisconsin and the State is in the process of flipping from Blue to Red. This goes along with my long-held idea – kick away the government support from the left, and our side will just go on winning…without the power of government behind it, the left is just a small minority of cranks whining about things no one cares about.
Trump will win any fight he picks with the bureaucracy. Oh, sure – the MSM will try to make out that the bureaucrats are long suffering patriots being unfairly maligned…but other than dyed-in-the-wool Progressives (many of whom are bureaucrats of one sort or another), no one is going to buy that. Our dealings with the bureaucracy are the DMV, the VA, the IRS…and it’s not just the slowness and unresponsiveness of the bureaucrats which is in our experience, but the mind-boggling obtuseness…like, for instance, when I found out from my friendly, neighborhood bureaucrats that while they’d pay $5,000.00 a month to put my late father in a substandard retirement home, they wouldn’t pay me $2,000.00 a month to just hire some extra in-home care for him (I just kept him at home at dealt with it). There are 10,000 stories out there about bureaucratic incompetence and malfeasance – no one is going to be able to generate sympathy for them.
Churchill had his “prayers” – his memos to the staff always began with “pray provide me with the facts on a single sheet of paper” or some such…he simply harassed the bureaucrats and gave them no rest. He made them do what he wanted them to do – they can’t refuse; the bureaucrats are at the disposal of the Executive…they have to follow all lawful orders. I suspect that Trump is going to make them toe the line…
…..they have shown they have no compunction about inflicting damage on the country when it suits their goals.
They have been doing that for the last 8 years. I think Soros, Steyer, et al were 100% convinced that their open borders and entitlement policies would have permanently changed the electorate of the country by 2016 and that underhanded efforts on behalf of the DOJ, IRS, and EPA would have permanently demoralized those deplorable people in fly over country. They gave it their best effort and had the media in their back pocket but ………. they guessed wrong.
When you have intelligence agencies so repeatedly disgraced by their incompetence and/or blatant politicalization of their findings they won’t get a lot of sympathy when/if Trump starts to do some serious housecleaning.
Comey first tried to ingratiate himself with the presumptive heir to the Obama Regime, Hillary Clinton, by offering her cover for her crimes, and then he tried to straddle the fence by sucking up a little to the Trump side. No one will be surprised to find him gone, not just gone but gone under a cloud. The CIA has been a mess, and the whole Benhazi thing will, or at least should, splash back on them to some extent. While it was mostly a State Department screwup, with the CIA refusing to go along with providing Stingers to the Ghaddafi movement (read: Al Queda) they were still involved in USA efforts to unseat a national leader. They haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in any area recently.
What has happened is that the Left has so deeply infiltrated all our government agencies that none can be really trusted. So a “war with the IC” is not going to upset as many people as the Left would like to think. In fact, it will probably be cheered. Add the IRS to the list and it will be a whole movement.
Mark, your comment on the bureaucratic decisions regarding your father would resonate across the country. I just got off the phone with a woman who lost her home in the big flood in 2012 in northern Colorado, the one that was 100 miles wide and 200 miles long, starting in her case when a government agency made the decision to dump vast amounts of water into an already flood-stage river instead of diverting it to other rivers and reservoirs that had plenty of room for it.
If there hasn’t already been a decision to make the word “accountability” the buzzword for the new administration, there should be.
Over the years, I think I’ve made clear my general disdain for government intelligence agencies, on the whole. The only sort of intelligence which is, in my view, of any practical worth is intelligence on the moves of enemy armed forces. That sort of thing, if good enough, can tell you if someone is going to attack and the very best of it tells you when and where they are going to attack. The rest of it is dross – and often no better than one can get just reading newspapers (or, at least, what one could get reading newspapers when MSMers were actually reporters, rather than mere scribes for political talking points). Churchill, when he was warning of German re-armament, got most of his information on the Germans by reading the papers…some times even small bits of info can reveal a great deal (as when he discovered, probably from trade magazines, that Germany was importing the particular materials you need for producing armor plate – vital for tanks and warships). But even all that couldn’t tell him when and where the Germans were planning to strike (though just by paying close attention, he picked out the exact timing of the Italian invasion of Albania). The Brits didn’t get that sort of information until they picked up Ultra and essentially started reading the German messages…some times faster than the Germans were. The key for all such efforts is to just be on the look out and never commit what Napoleon considered the cardinal sin of a commander: forming a picture. That is, assuming someone will act in a certain way when they may act entirely differently (the Germans in both World Wars kept having that problem – because they thought they had reduced War to a Science…”if I do this, they must do that”…and, so, Verdun and Stalingrad). Be on the look out – and be prepared for anything (this is why “peace through strength” is always the best option…if you are really powerful, it makes it far less likely that someone will attack, because aggressors never plan for hard-fought victories…they always hope for cheap triumphs).
Our intelligence agencies were caught flat-footed by Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, the first Russian atomic bomb, the Chinese intervention in Korea, the Yom Kippur War, 9/11…just over and over again missing what was about to happen. In hindsight, every one of these events was massively advertised. All the clues were there, but none of them were put together properly. We pay these guys to supposedly be expert analysts of disparate data and they just keep getting it wrong. Part of that, no doubt, stems from whomever is in charge of the political system…if the CinC is disinclined to believe bad things are coming, he’ll make it clear he doesn’t want to hear anything which disturbs his world view. But, even with that, it’s not like our intel agencies can show up reports which were suppressed that would have properly sounded the alarm. There’s nothing – just the raw bits of data which no one put together. If they can’t detect someone as massive as the 9/11 attacks, what good are they?
I do hope that a lot of house cleaning is done in the intelligence world…and that it is re-keyed to look closely for armed enemy movements, and to providing the CinC and theater commanders with appreciations of enemy capabilities and recent movements…after that, it would be up to the President and his military commanders to take counter-measures as they see fit.
One of the funniest things I have read from an “intelligence” report on the alleged hacking is this:
“Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order…”
Where to start? First and most obvious is that the Democrat Party in the United States is getting closer and closer to Communism all the time, and therefore more and more of a political ally of Russia.
Then there is the timidity of Dems when it comes to addressing Russian incursions and offenses. It is silly to think Russia would prefer a stronger opponent. An opponent at all, really, The Dems tried to curry favor with the bootlicking “RESET” button fiasco, Obama promised Vlad he would be more “flexible” after he got reelected, Hillary made her State Department a shopping center for Russian enterprise, and overall I can’t imagine Russia wanting a change in the political direction of the United States.
On top of that, Russia knew exactly what it would cost to get their way under a President Clinton, while Trump is a wild card, probably can’t be bought, and represents a much more aggressive pushback against Russian bullying.
Then we get to the claim, allegedly from an “intelligence agency” which would, one would presume, at least make a token effort to appear non partisan, which claims that there has been “..a US-led liberal democratic order…”—verbiage clearly trying to convey the impression that whatever a “US-led liberal democratic order” is supposed to be, it is really good, and the Russians hate it now that they are bad guys again. That entire phrase puts the whole “report” into the Propaganda File. I just can’t imagine a true intelligence agency spouting such Liberal claptrap. I realize that one of OURS allegeldy did, but remember, I used the modifier “true”.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/01/06/intel-report-claims-putin-personally-ordered-hacking-influence-campaign-against-clinton-because-he-preferred-trump/
I have already posted my 2 cents worth on vaccinations before. I’ll just add this.
As of 2015, if children receive all recommended childhood vaccines, they received 49 doses of 15 vaccines by age 6 and 69 doses of 16 vaccines by the time they graduate from high school. Most times multiple vaccines are administered at the same time, even within the first few days of the birth. There are no valid scientific studies — NONE — to support the safety of giving several vaccines at the same time. Vaccines are administered simultaneously for convenience, not safety, because medical policymakers realize that “the number of visits to a healthcare provider, for vaccines, is an impediment” to receiving all of the recommended shots.
During vaccination, a child typically receives a combination of 8 or more powerful drugs simultaneously. Each drug contains disease matter (bacteria and viruses), in addition to toxic stabilizers and preservative, such as formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal, polysorbate 80 (Tween-80) and benzethonium chloride, which means, ALL of these vaccines are neurotoxins.
At least 80% of our immune system is in the nasal passage, the gut (gut flora) and the intestines. Vaccines are usually administered by shot, bypassing the body’s built in mechanisms to fight the viruses and bacteria. Add to that, newborns lack sufficient protection of any kind to guard against premature damage to the blood barrier on the brain. Currently children are getting 17 shots containing aluminum, a quadrupling of the amount given since the 1970’s. It is found in Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b), Pneumococcal & Gardasil (HPV) vaccines. To a 6 pound baby, 11-14 mcg would be toxic. The Hepatitis B vaccine alone given at birth contains 250 mcg of aluminum – 20 times higher than safety levels allow. Babies weigh about 12 pounds (5.5 kg) at 2 months of age when they receive 1225 mcg of aluminum from their vaccines – 50 times higher than safety levels.
Heavy metal toxicity has a cumulative effect as your body does not readily eliminate it. Instead it is often stored it in fat tissue which is why we often develop a host of associated problems later in life. Acute exposure to heavy metals can lead to a host of auto-immune disorders including Downs Syndrome, Autism, Schizophrenia, ALS, Lupus, Parkinson’s & Alzheimer’s Disease and other cognitive disfunctions.
Before the 1940s, autism was extremely rare or unheard of. Then in the mid-1940s we began a massive vaccination programs and autism was “born”. At first, it only occurred in the children of wealthy parents, since vaccinations were not free or government sponsored like today. Later autism became a disease of all classes, with government-sponsored vaccine programs.
One of the most telling devastations of vaccines comes from parents. For example, one study involved 88 autistic children. Of those, 51 percent said symptoms of autism began shortly after the MMR vaccination, and 36 percent said the problems started days after the DPT shot. This is an all too common occurrence and anecdotal evidence over-whelmingly points to vaccines as a substantial causing factor. The connection between autism and vaccinations can not be denied.
The pertussis vaccine is very neurotoxic and is used in the laboratory to produce brain lesions in lab animals for study. But if our child develops brain problems after a DPT vaccination, our doctor will tell us it is coincidence or genetic. Vaccinations have been known to increase demyelination, a process related to many neurological diseases. Myelin is designed to protect the outer coating of neurons, much like the plastic outer coating over an electrical wire. When the myelin is damaged the nerves are short-circuited and do not function normally. Then neurological disorders such as, MS, ALS or paralysis can result.
And it cannot be stated enough where, just like the earlier tobacco (big money industry) studies were later found to be totally fraudulent, a large number of studies indicating the safety of vaccinations (also a big money industry) are also found to be fraudulent and have been discredited. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was enacted to protect pharmaceutical companies from any damage their vaccines caused. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was also created at the same time in as a way to sweep the growing number of vaccine injuries under the rug. A 2014 oversight report by the GAO states, most claims took multiple years to settle and it estimates 2 out of every 3 cases never get heard, in part because several vaccines are not even on the list for determination. Despite relentless efforts by the pharmacies and medical establishment (did you know that a good many of our medical teaching colleges, especially those that perform clinical studies are largely funded by pharmaceutical companies – no bias there right??) to push vaccinations for everyone, there are no proven cases of autism among the non-vaccinated Amish.
JDG1,
I wasn’t present for the previous discussion of vaccines, but what you’ve posted here is nonsense. While all medical procedures carry some risk for adverse effects, vaccines are safe, effective and have alleviated the world of uncountable misery.
Your method of argumentation here is characteristic of a conspiracy theorist; throw out half-truths, unsourced opinions and speculation in such quantity that it becomes nearly impossible for one to invest the time it would take to untangle every one. I’m curious as to what your source is for all this information?
“I’m curious as to what your source is for all this information? – RUSTYBROWN2014”
My background is in computers, which qualifies me for absolutely nothing on the subject. But, both my son and wife have been in health professions for a number of years. My wife is a nurse with over 40 years experience and worked in Labor & Delivery for most of them. My son is a doctor for a dozen years and has studied and lectured on many topics including vaccinations. I listened to him and read much of his research along with a number of other doctors and researchers.
I have no interest getting into a pissing match with you but will make a few comments. Your responses resemble the same type of responses I read from pushers or climate change citing things like “scientific consensus” when you state things like “…what the best science tells us.” There are a good many doctors, scientist and researchers who very much disagree with what you believe the “best science tells us”.
AMAZONA provided a very good example that I believe is relevant to the topic at hand. In my humble opinion (which you’re free to disagree with as it’s only an opinion) she has made an astute, first hand, long term observations about vaccinations and reactions, with consistent before and after patterns. While it may not prove anything, only a foolish person would disregard its value as it relates to the discussion.
Most people think the FDA’s approval process for drugs includes rigorous independent testing and careful assessment of the results, along with expert corroboration of the benefits versus risk. Well…. not exactly. In fact, hardly ever. Even in their own website the FDA briefly explains their Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) doesn’t actually test drugs itself. So who does conduct the research that provides the so called evidence of drug’s safety and effectiveness? Who reports the benefits and risks discovered through clinical trials? It is none other than the drug manufactures themselves who have been caught time after time putting profits before public safety. The FDA’s alleged independent, objective research has been conducted by pharmaceutical industry insiders and academia on the payroll of the drug companies. They make a show of objectivity, but pharmaceutical companies pay generous fees to the individuals and institutions that conduct research on their behalf, and the FDA takes most of it at face value.
More telling is the fact that some of the FDA’s own scientists have been at odds with administrators who have ignored scientific evidence and abused their authority. After the election of Obama, a group of FDA physicians and scientists joined public advocacy groups calling for reform to eliminate the corruption and wrongdoing that permeates all levels of the FDA. In a letter to the President, one group charged that the FDA Commissioner, attorneys and others in top positions, “violated laws, rules and regulations” and “suppressed, altered or eliminated scientific or technological findings and conclusions”.
The FDA’s failure to protect us is widely evidenced by the fact that numerous drugs are given approval, some by the “fast track” process, that were forced to be removed from use after a significant number of sicknesses, injuries or deaths occurred directly related to the drug, sometimes after only being on the market for a short duration. So how does that happen if the original studies were not incomplete, defective or outright lied about in the first place? In a sizable number of cases, true research has shown that the trials and “scientific research” done by the pharmaceutical companies and those on the payroll, was misleading, falsified or tainted. For anyone who watches any TV these days, the commercial are filled with law firms representing victims significantly harmed by drugs and have proof of pharmaceutical companies misrepresenting their products.
There is a common saying when trying to determine corruption and greed – follow the money. Big money from pharmaceutical companies readily flows thru the hands of many congressmen, senators, academic institutions and other government institutions like the FDA and CDC who are perceived by the general public to be looking out for their best interest.
The perfidies of the FDA have really not been a focus of this discussion. There are plenty of clinical studies outside of the FDA that have verified the safety and efficacy of vaccines and the recommended schedule; in fact, I’m not sure the FDA has much of a role at all in doing the deep dive studies on vaccines. Plenty of problems with the FDA, we agree.
That aside, I don’t see anything in your response which deviates from my original assessment of your position–unsourced half truths, deflection and speculation.
You’re endorsement of Ama’s livestock evidence indicates how willing you are to load your arsenal with whatever ammunition you find regardless of it’s relevance. You call that “very good evidence”? As I’ve explained, the epistemological differences between horses and humans, the differences between the diseases and the vaccines between the two species, the anecdotal, unscientific nature of the account itself are all huge reasons why that anecdote should not be seriously considered in this discussion. Yet it’s “good evidence” to you. I read Ama’s account and thought “hmm, interesting”, but thought nothing further about it because there are too many variables which disqualify the account from relevant evidence for what we’re talking about.
I don’t know enough to take a side on the vaccination issue, but I do have a question. Assuming that JDGE1’s information is accurate, isn’t there an alternative vector for the core element of the vaccines? That is, the small amount of the disease intended to spur resistance to the disease itself?
A few years ago there was a big scare about some predicted epidemic. I don’t remember what it was—bird flu or swine flu or something—-and the manufacture of a vaccine was slow because each dose of the vaccine had to be incubated inside a chicken egg. Setting aside concerns about egg allergies, either existing or created by the vaccine, surely we have the technology to come up with a better medium for incubating the strains of whatever-it-was. What is the justification for having so much aluminum in vaccines? I just got rid of a lot of aluminum pots and pans because of the information on the health dangers of cooking with aluminum.
Vaccines are administered simultaneously for convenience, not safety, because medical policymakers realize that “the number of visits to a healthcare provider, for vaccines, is an impediment” to receiving all of the recommended shots.
During vaccination, a child typically receives a combination of 8 or more powerful drugs simultaneously.
I don’t have children, but I do have horses, and after years of seeing horses get sick for days after vaccinations, I stopped doing the multi-vaccines. Yes, it cost me more, because I started splitting up the 8-way shots into three smaller shots, and that involved paying more per horse and having a lot more labor involved in vaccinating. But I stopped making my horses sick, lethargic, lame and vulnerable to other health issues such as colic. I also stopped deworming on the same day as vaccinating. When I stopped overloading the poor animals with toxins all at the same time, they were healthier and happier, and I think this justified the extra cost.
Personally, I think getting rid of diseases like measles,whooping cough, polio etc is a very good thing, but that doesn’t mean that we are doing it in the best, safest way possible.
Cell based vaccine production is being increasingly used rather than egg based production, but the switch seems to be for expediency rather than any health concerns. Here’s a bit of info on aluminum. Doesn’t seem to be a big deal, and babies get much more aluminum through their food and environmental sources than through vaccines:
“Aluminum is used in vaccines as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is vaccine component that boosts the immune response to the vaccine. Adjuvants allow for lesser quantities of the vaccine and fewer doses. The adjuvant effects of aluminum were discovered in 1926.”
http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum
There are no studies that I’m aware of that show any benefits to spacing out vaccinations as opposed to the standard doubling up we do now, but there are some studies which show an adverse effect of delaying vaccinations. I don’t know what your horses were getting or how tightly regulated those products were compared to the stringent standards we have for human vaccines and therefore would not put too much stock into that anecdote.
As the purpose of a vaccine is to stimulate a reaction to it, obviously the more reactions that have to take place at the same time the harder it is on the person, or animal. One or two reactions at a time is much easier for the body to tolerate. When you see a whole herd of horses with heads hanging down, swollen injection sites, swollen necks, lethargy, decreased appetite and signs of overall muscle soreness, you know there has been a pretty strong physical event. When vaccinations are spaced out, a couple of weeks between each stage, and there are no negative physical signs, that tells me a lot.
There is a difference between “delaying” vaccinations and spacing them out.
Cooking with aluminum pots and pans has been under scrutiny for quite a while now, and most are not using this kind of equipment any more, cladding aluminum in copper or stainless when the cook wants the conductivity of aluminum without the leeching of the metal into food. It’s worse with acidic foods, which even taste nasty when cooked in aluminum.
Your quote seems to admit that the body will have a reaction to aluminum, so attaching a vaccine to aluminum will allow a stronger reaction to less vaccine because the body is already responding to the aluminum. Is that an accurate rephrasing of that you wrote?
“As the purpose of a vaccine is to stimulate a reaction to it, obviously the more reactions that have to take place at the same time the harder it is on the person, or animal. One or two reactions at a time is much easier for the body to tolerate.”
I’m unaware of any evidence that supports this. Can you point me to it? A persons body will be stimulated to have a reaction to a paper cut, but it’s no big deal for a healthy individual. Will two paper cuts be dire for that person?
Yes, I meant to say I’m aware of studies that show an adverse reaction to “spacing out” vaccines as opposed to “delaying” them, although delaying vaccinations is a bad idea as well.
I too have divested my household of some aluminum pans. I still have a few anodized ones, but am fairly careful to replace them when they show signs of wear. We all absorb a bunch of toxins in our lifetime and have to do our best to minimize the exposure, but I think any toxins in vaccines are a minimized, balanced, and well-studied risk that are far outweighed by the benefits.
I gave you evidence.
And it’s just common sense, as well. I think the paper cut analogy is not a good one. A paper cut, if not infected, is minor and superficial and may not even expose the blood supply to pathogens. The skin is a pretty good defense mechanism. But….would a paper cut affect a healthy person differently than a sick person? When the immune system is stressed, as it obviously is when jolted into a reaction to a vaccine, it is also impaired. You don’t undergo a medical procedure if you are already ill because your defenses are down. Your body is busy fighting whatever your illness may be. Dump eight different pathogens into one tiny body at a time, along with elements to increase the body’s reaction to those pathogens, and of course the body is going to be stressed.
You provided evidence that “the more reactions (to a vaccine) that have to take place at the same time the harder it is on the person”? I must have missed that. At least as it pertains to humans. Do you mean to say your horse anecdote is evidence? No. As I’ve indicated, I’m disinclined to take an anecdotal account of a horses reaction to vaccines as evidence for anything involving humans. Horse epidemiology is very different from human epidemiology, this is why we have to do human trials for drugs before they’re approved for humans, and while I don’t distrust your equestrian account we have absolutely no information on the numerous other variables that may have been in play in that situation. It’s simply not good evidence for what we’re talking about.
“When the immune system is stressed, as it obviously is when jolted into a reaction to a vaccine, it is also impaired…Dump eight different pathogens into one tiny body at a time, along with elements to increase the body’s reaction to those pathogens, and of course the body is going to be stressed.”
Again, any evidence for this? In humans I mean?
Rusty, I think you are confusing “evidence” with “proof”. There is abundant evidence of reactions to vaccines. Yes, I do understand that medicines for people are not for horses and vice versa. You call my extensive experience (well over 1000 vaccinations) “anecdotal” and I call it “observation”.
I am not saying that these reactions are necessarily bad, and certainly not that they mean no vaccinations should be given. As I quite clearly stated, I never stopped giving the same number of the same kinds of vaccinations to my animals. But I did space them out for the obvious reason that the fewer foreign elements introduced into a system at the same time, each element creating its own (necessary) reaction to induce resistance to a disease, the milder the aggregate reactions will be. And that is the key—-“aggregate”. Each reaction is a necessary part of the process, but the more reactions going on at the same time the more the organism, horse or child, is likely to feel them. I think it is prudent to ask less of the body, by giving it fewer traumas (even if those traumas are slight) at a time.
For all I know, the effectiveness of each vaccine might be increased by allowing the body to react to only one or two vaccines at a time. After all, the vaccine itself does not prevent disease. It only fools the body into thinking it has the disease, so the body will produce antibodies against that disease, so when the body is exposed to that disease later in life that resistance is already there. For all we know, a more vigorous immune system not weighed down with reacting to several invading organisms at once might produce more antibodies to one or two specific pathogens at a time.
In any case, I had enough observations of different reactions to vaccinations in horses using two different methods of vaccination to make me comfortable with the belief that it was better for the animals to not overload their systems with heavy loads of simultaneous vaccinations. My observations bore out my speculation that this would be a better way to handle vaccinations in my own herd. And by the way, my veterinarians agreed.
As for human critters, there has been a lot written about reactions to vaccines, and I venture to guess that most of it is accepted as fact even though it is also based on observations of children over many years by many parents and doctors.
The most common reaction is soreness or swelling at the site, or a low-grade fever that lasts for a day or two. This type of reaction is quite common and nothing to be alarmed about, but check with your doctor if you’re concerned.
Some vaccines are more likely to cause problems than others. The MMR, for example, can cause a fever and a rash seven to ten days after the injection. And the DTaP vaccine causes some babies (1 in 1,000) to cry inconsolably for several hours. When you take your child to be immunized, talk to your doctor about how your child might react.
Rarely, an immunization causes a high fever, which could provoke a seizure. This is scary but has no long-term health implications for your child. Call your doctor if your child has more than a mild reaction to a shot, or if you observe symptoms that concern you.
More severe reactions to vaccines are rare, but they can happen. Signs of a serious allergic reaction can include difficulty breathing, hoarseness, wheezing, hives, paleness, dizziness, fainting, or a rapid heartbeat.
http://www.babycenter.com/404_how-can-i-tell-if-my-child-is-having-a-bad-reaction-to-a-vac_11477.bc
Most vaccine reactions are not serious: tenderness, redness, or swelling where the shot was given; or a mild fever. These happen soon after the shot is given and go away within a day or two. They happen with up to about half of vaccinations, depending on the vaccine.
https://www.google.com/#q=reactions+to+vaccinations+in+infants
There is also a pretty long list of reactions on this site: Of special interest is this:
When to Call Us for Immunization Reactions
Call 911 Now
• Trouble breathing or swallowing
• Not moving or very weak
• Can’t wake up
• You think your child has a life-threatening emergency
Call Doctor Now or Go to ER
• Age under 12 weeks old with fever. Caution: Do NOT give your baby any fever medicine before being seen
• Fever over 104° F 40° C
• High-pitched crying lasts more than 1 hour
• Crying nonstop lasts more than 3 hours
• Your child looks or acts very sick
• You think your child needs to be seen, and the problem is urgent
http://www.pediatricweb.com/webpost/iframe/Illness_432.asp?tArticleId=1638
I’m not sure where you place your threshold between observation (evidence) and proof. Clearly when a just-vaccinated baby is not moving or is very weak or can’t wake up, we can’t go back and ungive some of the vaccines to see if the reaction would have been milder with fewer pathogens to deal with. We can add the possibility that the problem is due to just one of the vaccines given and would have occurred if that had been the only one. But I’m an Occam’s Razor kind of person, and to me the most logical assumption would be that the cumulative effect of the amount of stuff dumped into that little body at one time was probably more than a fraction of that amount would have had.
I am not confusing evidence with proof, I’m merely stating that your evidence for the question we’re talking about, whether the pediatrician recommended batch vaccinations are harmful to human babies, is very poor. Look, for the third time, anecdotal observations of how horses react to batches of horse vaccine are extremely poor evidence for how humans will react to batches of human vaccines. Different species, different drugs. Leaving the epidemiological problems aside, which are substantial enough alone to dismiss your observations, there is nothing scientific about your evidence. No controls, no scientific rigor = very poor evidence. I’m absolutely certain that nearly all pediatricians, scientists, and other experts in this field would agree with me on this. And I only say “nearly” all because I know there are a few anti-vaccer cranks out there who dismiss the best evidence. You say:
“There is abundant evidence of reactions to vaccines.”
I never said there wasn’t. In fact, I’m confused as to why you would list the many very rare adverse reactions that a baby may have to particular vaccines, because I never denied those risks. In fact, in the very second sentence of this thread I stated “While all medical procedures carry some risk for adverse effects…” We are not discussing potential side effects of vaccines, we’re discussing whether those risks are aggravated by giving those vaccines to infants in the recommended batches, and the science clearly says “no, they are not”. Not only that, but spreading vaccines out may actually increase the risk of negative outcomes.
“in the first year of life, there was no difference in seizure risk between children who received the full vaccine schedule on time, and those who had delayed or reduced vaccines. In this age group, alternate vaccine schedules had no benefit on the risk of seizures.
In the second year of life, however, those who delayed the MMR vaccine to 12-15 months had almost triple the seizure risk, while those delaying to after 16 months had a 6 times greater risk. This increased risk was even higher for the MMRV vaccine.
This data strongly suggests that getting vaccines on time has a lower risk of post-vaccination febrile seizures than delaying to the second year of life, when the inherent risk is greater.”
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/delaying-vaccines-not-a-good-idea/
I’ll list more scientific evidence in separate posts.
So your conclusions here are based on your own observations of a different drug given to a different species and your speculations from there.
You’re also misusing Occam’s Razor here. Occam’s Razor does not say “trust your speculation” or “trust your gut”, it says that between competing hypotheses the option with the fewest assumptions should be selected. So if you’re an Occam’s razor type of gal, when weighing the risks of batch vaccinations on human infants you should go with the carefully controlled clinical scientific studies done on the specific species we’re talking about with the specific drugs we’re talking about. You know, less assumptions that way.
Here’s another scientific study showing no ill effect of batch infant vaccination:
“Conclusions: Timely vaccination during infancy has no adverse effect on neuropsychological outcomes 7 to 10 years later. These data may reassure parents who are concerned that children receive too many vaccines too soon.
“
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/05/24/peds.2009-2489
Finally, another scientific study highlighting the risks of delaying vaccines, which is what happens when they’re spread out:
“Undervaccination is an increasing trend that potentially places children and their communities at an increased risk for serious infectious diseases.”
Whoops, forgot to post that last link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24019039
You do realize, don’t you, Rusty, that we are talking about two different things here? Your links talk about DELAYING vaccinations, and UNDERVACCINATING. I have not said a word about delaying vaccination beyond the desired age for any given vaccine, nor have I advocated undervaccinating.
Let’s say that research has said that an infant should receive vaccines A, B, C, D, E, F and G all before the age of 8 months. I am saying that based upon my own observation of more extreme reactions to bunched vaccinations in other mammals, I choose to take my child in four to seven times, to get one vaccination at a time, or possibly two at a time if those particular vaccines have a history of little to no reaction. Maybe there are a couple of vaccines that work better together, each amplifying the immunization result of the other, so I might have them given together. By the time my child is eight months old, he has received every single vaccination recommended, within the ideal time frame.
Let’s say that my neighbor has chosen to have all seven vaccines given at the same time.
Neither child was under-vaccinated, and neither child went beyond the ideal time frame for his vaccinations, so neither had delayed vaccinations.
So your links are not relevant to what I am saying, though they might be to what you are processing.
I can buy a fifth of Cobb Creek and have one or two ounces a night, two or three times a week, till the bottle is gone, with no ill effects. Or I can drink the whole bottle in a couple of hours and end up in the ER. It’s the same concept.
A question I have is, are these separate vaccines formulated as if they would be given individually? That is, does each individual dose have the amount of adjuvents deemed necessary to boost the immune response to that particular vaccine? When that question is answered, and I have a feeling the answer is that yes, each dose can stand alone with the appropriate amount of adjuvent necessary to boost response to IT, then my question is, when it is known that several vaccines will be given together, is the level of adjuvent multiplied by the number of different vaccines?
Because I am admittedly ignorant of the science here, and am talking about an abstract idea, I may not be clear in my question.
Vaccine A = 1 dose of vaccine and 1 dose of adjuvent
Vaccine B = 1 dose of vaccine and 1 dose of adjuvent
Vaccine C = 1 dose of vaccine and 1 dose of adjuvent
……..and so on.
If Baby Rusty gets all seven of my hypothetical vaccines at the same time, does he also get seven doses of the adjuvent? If he does, is it necessary? Would a single dose of the adjuvent work to stimulate the responses of all the vaccines?
If JDGE1 is correct in saying “Currently children are getting 17 shots containing aluminum, a quadrupling of the amount given since the 1970’s….” is it necessary to have the same amount of aluminum in a multi-vaccine shot as in each individual shot multiplied by the number of vaccines?
And what work is being done to find other stabilizers, preservatives, adjuvents, etc. that are less toxic? If we know that six vaccines are typically given in a single shot, do they each have to have an individual level of preservatives and adjuvents?
I am not just automatically confident in the veracity or morality of many companies, so I don’t automatically assume that they have spent a lot of time and money working on these things if there are enough people out there who won’t question them.
Rusty, you say “Different species, different drugs.”
Yes, you are right about that. But what you are missing is that I am not comparing the drugs themselves, but the difference in reactions when the drugs are administered in large batches rather than in several smaller ones. Totally different argument.
Leaving the epidemiological problems aside, which are substantial enough alone to dismiss your observations, there is nothing scientific about your evidence. No controls…”
Well, yeah, there is SOMETHING scientific about my evidence, as I did have controls. In a herd of 70 horses, for ten or eleven years every single horse had similar reactions to batch vaccinations. Then those same horses did not have those reactions when vaccinations were spread out. This kind of observation to different outcomes after different actions is the core of the scientific method. It is convenient to just dismiss these kinds of observations because they don’t fit into a chosen belief system, but while my own experience is not enough to base an absolute conclusion on, it is certainly worth taking into consideration. Science begins with observation of phenomena, and when dealing with subjects who cannot verbalize symptoms it is what prompts further investigation. When that investigation shows things that can be clinically recorded, such as site inflammation and fevers, that is merely added to the original observation of various reactions.
I haven’t tried to find out if there has been veterinary research into clinical changes in horses receiving batch vaccinations vs timed vaccinations, because it’s a silly thing to spend so much time on. There may be such research. I do know that when I called my vet the first couple of years because I was concerned about the condition of my animals in the days after we vaccinated I was told it was just a reaction to the vaccines. I do know that I, and every horseman I know, knows better than to vaccinate within a couple of weeks of competing. We don’t vaccinate horses that are already sick, and I don’t think people vaccinate babies that are sick. Why? Too much stress on the immune system and the system as a whole.
And I don’t understand your extreme reaction to the idea that it might be better for an infant to avoid dumping a whole lot of stuff in its system instead of spacing it out. Your rather passionate arguments have not been supported by your links, and although you declare with great vigor your belief your links don’t support what you say.
You say we’re discussing whether those risks are aggravated by giving those vaccines to infants in the recommended batches, and the science clearly says “no, they are not”. Yet you have not linked to anything that says this. There are opinions, which depend on merely dismissing or ignoring extensive evidence, calling it mere “anecdotal”. “Science” has dismissed extensive evidence because whatever the “science” has done to research this has not confirmed the observations. Do we know what research has been done? No. Can we have accurate and absolute controls when we are dealing with living human beings? No. Can you cite tests where a significant number of infants received batch vaccines and an equal number received spaced vaccinations, with comparisons of reactions? Maybe you can, but you haven’t.
You say Not only that, but spreading vaccines out may actually increase the risk of negative outcomes. Not according to any of your links. They refer to delaying vaccinations beyond the recommended ages—not the same thing.
I’m seeing an Emily Litella moment here, and it isn’t mine.
“You do realize, don’t you, Rusty, that we are talking about two different things here? Your links talk about DELAYING vaccinations, and UNDERVACCINATING. I have not said a word about delaying vaccination beyond the desired age for any given vaccine, nor have I advocated under vaccinating.”
Wrong.You have indeed been talking about “delaying vaccination beyond the desired age for any given vaccine”, at least if we’re agreeing that the “desired age” is the one recommended by our best science and pediatricians. That is what we’re talking about Ama, deviating from the recommended schedule which has the babies getting their vaccines in batches. You say you think it’s harmful, I say the best evidence says it isn’t. When you fail to vaccinate at that “desired age” of the schedule, you are DELAYING vaccinations. You are UNDERVACCINATING. At least that’s what the pediatricians, scientists and relevant experts are saying you’re doing. From the last study:
“Undervaccination was defined as the number of doses of DTaP vaccine that was either missing or delayed by the INDEX DATE”. (emphasis mine)
The “index date” is the CDC schedule timeline, go check it out. Any deviation from this is not “within the ideal time frame” as you put it. Any deviation from this is what these studies are talking about when they use the terms “DELAYING” and “UNDERVACCINATING”.
My links are entirely and specifically relevant to what we’re discussing, your interpretation of them is not, it says so in the studies themselves. Your scenarios and analogies are completely contrary to what the best science tells us. You say: “Let’s say that research has said that an infant should receive vaccines A, B, C, D, E, F and G all before the age of 8 months.” No, let’s not, because the research says no such thing. The research has formulated a very precise schedule of doses to be given to an infant mont by month.
And on top of all of this confusion on your part, you STILL have not provided one scrap of good evidence that the CDC recommended schedule is harmful to infants, which is your claim. So rather than misinterpret the studies I’ve provided, why don’t you present some evidence of your own? But please, no more anecdotes about horses.
“Rusty, you say “Different species, different drugs.”
Yes, you are right about that. But what you are missing is that I am not comparing the drugs themselves, but the difference in reactions when the drugs are administered in large batches rather than in several smaller ones. Totally different argument.”
This makes no sense. We are talking about different reactions to DIFFERENT DRUGS, so you can’t just discount that the drugs are different. The difference in the drugs is entirely relevant.
And you say your observations were scientific? Get back to me when you’ve published your paper and I’ll look it over. Until then it’s an unscientific anecdote.
“And I don’t understand your extreme reaction to the idea that it might be better for an infant to avoid dumping a whole lot of stuff in its system instead of spacing it out”
My reaction is based on there being no good evidence to support that claim.
“Your rather passionate arguments have not been supported by your links, and although you declare with great vigor your belief your links don’t support what you say.
You say we’re discussing whether those risks are aggravated by giving those vaccines to infants in the recommended batches, and the science clearly says “no, they are not”. Yet you have not linked to anything that says this.”
Holy Cow, the studies I’ve linked to DIRECTLY say this; in fact, it’s what each of those studies is precicely about. If you’re incapable of accurately digesting the scientific data I’ve provided which completely and specifically supports my claims I guess we’re done here. I’l leave it to other readers to draw their own conclusions from the evidence.
And again, “spreading out” vaccines from the recommended schedule is the exact same thing as “delaying” them. This is self-evidentiary logic. If I “spread out” my consumption of a bag of chips, I’m by necessity “delaying” my consumption of some of those chips. Sheesh.
“You have indeed been talking about “delaying vaccination beyond the desired age for any given vaccine”, at least if we’re agreeing that the “desired age” is the one recommended by our best science and pediatricians. That is what we’re talking about Ama, deviating from the recommended schedule which has the babies getting their vaccines in batches.
No, this is NOT what I have been talking about. At no time have I suggested being in favor of going beyond the recommended time frame for a vaccine. Not once. You are the one who has added your interpretation of what that means, which I highlighted above. No, Rusty, getting all these vaccines within a certain time window is NOT the same as getting them in batches. They are often delivered in batches, but, as JDGE1 said, this is because of a determination that parents are more likely to get all the vaccines done if they don’t have to make a lot of trips to the doctor to do it. ( Vaccines are administered simultaneously for convenience, not safety, because medical policymakers realize that “the number of visits to a healthcare provider, for vaccines, is an impediment” to receiving all of the recommended shots.)
We’re not talking about a tiny little window here. We are talking about weeks and even months. Look at your own quote: ““in the first year of life, there was no difference in seizure risk between children who received the full vaccine schedule on time, and those who had delayed or reduced vaccines. In this age group, alternate vaccine schedules had no benefit on the risk of seizures.
In the second year of life, however, those who delayed the MMR vaccine to 12-15 months had almost triple the seizure risk, while those delaying to after 16 months had a 6 times greater risk. This increased risk was even higher for the MMRV vaccine.
This data strongly suggests that getting vaccines on time has a lower risk of post-vaccination febrile seizures than delaying to the second year of life, when the inherent risk is greater.”
It is talking about the difference between vaccinating prior to the first birthday and waiting till after that. That gives a full year in which to vaccinate, according to this one link—from the first year of life to the second year of life.
You say I have been advocating delaying vaccinations. Have you read my posts? Here is what you took as advocating a delay, rather than merely a spacing out of injections: “Let’s say that research has said that an infant should receive vaccines A, B, C, D, E, F and G all before the age of 8 months. I am saying that based upon my own observation of more extreme reactions to bunched vaccinations in other mammals, I choose to take my child in four to seven times, to get one vaccination at a time, or possibly two at a time if those particular vaccines have a history of little to no reaction. Maybe there are a couple of vaccines that work better together, each amplifying the immunization result of the other, so I might have them given together. By the time my child is eight months old, he has received every single vaccination recommended, within the ideal time frame.
That hardly sounds like recommending or even approving of a DELAY in vaccinating, and is clearly just a slightly different approach to the timing.
Let’s say that my neighbor has chosen to have all seven vaccines given at the same time.
Neither child was under-vaccinated, and neither child went beyond the ideal time frame for his vaccinations, so neither had delayed vaccinations.”
You also say that the only way to avoid delaying vaccinations is to vaccinate with many vaccines at once: “…. the recommended schedule which has the babies getting their vaccines in batches” That is simply not true. When you have weeks or months to vaccinate with all the recommended vaccines, they simply do not have to be given in batches. Any parent willing to go to the trouble to make many visits to a doctor can space out those vaccinations and still get them all delivered within the “recommended schedule”.
You have probably only vaccinated your own children, however many that might be, but I have vaccinated literally hundreds of horses—-which are routinely vaccinated every year, not just once as youngsters, so I am talking about thousands of vaccinations—- as well as cattle and dogs and cats. I am very aware of the time frames for various vaccines, and booster shots needed to follow up some vaccines. I am also aware of some of the things JDGE1 has said, about immunities absorbed from the mother, either through bloodstream transfer in utero or through nursing. Mammals are not that different in many ways.
And knowing this, and knowing from my own extensive experience as well as discussions with veterinarians and other horse owners, horses at least benefit from having time for their bodies to adjust to the stresses of responses necessary to build immunity before having to deal with a new set of pathogens and responses. I guess it can be argued that a seven pound week old baby is tougher than a 900 pound three year old horse, but I’ll leave that argument for someone else. I personally consider a seven pound week old baby a pretty fragile organism, and would go out of my way to avoid as many stressors as I could for the child.
JDGE1 is wrong in saying that the schedule only exists for the convenience of the parents. The schedule exists as it does because the health and safety of the newborn is its first consideration. The schedule exists as it does because of careful study of a human newborns developing immune systems and her susceptibility to diseases.
And it’s clear to me you’re still misreading the studies I’ve provided. We are indeed talking about a relatively tiny window, haven’t you even been bothered to look at the actual schedule you’re talking about by now? This is the schedule all of the studies in my links are referring to when they talk about an infant getting their vaccinations ON TIME. Here it is:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html
See, the recommendation is 6 separate vaccines WITHIN the second month. There are other benchmarks in the schedule which also call for several vaccines WITHIN a single month. If you space them out more than 30 days, you are DELAYING the vaccination and UNDERVACCINNATING. You are also going to run into the problem of pushing the delayed vaccination closer to the NEXT scheduled vaccination than it would have been if you had just followed the recommended schedule in the first place; this would seemingly betray your original intention of spacing them out unless you then proceeded to DELAY the next one too.
So all this time you’ve been advocating spacing them out by a mere couple of weeks? And in doing so pushing the vaccine you spaced out CLOSER to the next scheduled vaccine? Seems like a weird strategy to me considering all studies show children get the best results by just following the schedule as written in the first place. The disadvantage to your approach is appreciable inconvenience to the new parents, increased trauma to the newborn, and exposing your unvaccinated infant to potentially fatal diseases for whatever period of time you’ve mysteriously decided it’s prudent to delay. And you justify this how? Why?
I shouldn’t have to say this, but I’ll just ignore any more of your observations of different drug reactions on different species. As I’ve already explained your anecdotes are entirely irrelevant to this discussion especially in light of the fact that we have so much scientifically rigorous data to consider that involves our own species and the specific drugs, diseases, and schedules we’re actually talking about. Occam’s Razor and all.
“If you space them out more than 30 days, you are DELAYING the vaccination and UNDERVACCINNATING. ./..” yet I never said anything about spacing out vaccines for “more than 30 days”. Actually, I never gave a specific length of spacing.
“So all this time you’ve been advocating spacing them out by a mere couple of weeks? “ Again—-I never gave a specific length of spacing. I would think the time between vaccinations would depend at least to some degree on the level of reaction to the last one.
” The disadvantage to your approach is appreciable inconvenience to the new parents…” Their choice. Remember, I never advocated forbidding batch vaccination. I merely pointed out what I think might be advantages to a different approach. Not a radical difference, just a little one.
“The disadvantage to your approach is appreciable inconvenience to the new parents, increased trauma to the newborn, and exposing your unvaccinated infant to potentially fatal diseases for whatever period of time you’ve mysteriously decided it’s prudent to delay. And you justify this how? Why?”
I made my position clear and you just sneer at it and dismiss it. It is just as defensible as blindly following the dictates of some “scientist” somewhere who has also decided to dismiss observations of millions of parents and pediatricians who have noted negative effects of vaccinations and considered the obvious possibility that effects might not be as severe if fewer pathogens are introduced at any given time. As most newborns aren’t exposed to “potentially fatal diseases” in their first few weeks, I think that might be something of an exaggeration for effect.
And really—-increased trauma to the newborn? From those extra car trips?
You see, that is the cool thing about all of this. You get to identify experts and put yourself and your children in their hands, and if it means ignoring or dismissing any contradictory evidence you get to make that decision, too. This will make you feel better.
But what if you are wrong? What if there ARE serious consequences to some babies because of overloading their systems with multiple vaccines? What if you rolled the dice and your baby is one of the few who couldn’t handle the larger load of chemicals all at one time? There are no do-overs.
And parents who have given credence to the observations of others get to decide to expend a little more effort, go to a few more doctor visits, and give their babies a few days to recover from one series of vaccinations before going through the next. This will make them feel better.
If they are wrong, what is the downside? A few more car trips, some inconvenience, a couple more injections. They will never know for sure if their prudence, or paranoia, made a difference—but they will also have no regrets.
After going through this overheated fuss about what is, really, nothing but a difference of opinion not on the need for vaccines, which is a serious topic, but on something as trivial as whether or not they should be dumped in large quantities or spaced out to give the infants a little time to recover between doses, I can see that Baby And Me classes might end up with warring factions, each convinced of the rightness of one position over another. Who knew? I certainly had no idea this was such a sensitive topic. If I had, I would have chosen to talk about something less likely to stir up an emotional discussion, maybe taking a position on the existence of the chupacabra or who shot JFK. Mark might be ready to visit that again.
But I’m sure all these scientists and doctors appreciate your fervent defense of them and their theories.
“I never advocated forbidding batch vaccination. I merely pointed out what I think might be advantages to a different approach.”
And yet you offer no relevant evidence why you think this.
“blindly following the dictates of some “scientist” somewhere who has also decided to dismiss observations of millions of parents and pediatricians who have noted negative effects of vaccinations”
Talk about exaggerating for effect! Millions of parents and pediatricians you say? Why don’t you post a list of the multitudes of pediatricians who agree with you that altering the recommended schedule is a sensible idea and not harmful? You won’t because they don’t exist. Pediatricians agree with me, or rather, I should say I agree with them.
“And really—-increased trauma to the newborn? From those extra car trips?
“
No, from the infants perception of increased needle sticks. You see, when the vaccinations are given according to schedule you usually have two practitioners giving doses two at a time in rapid succession. While unpleasant, in the baby’s mind this is all just one traumatic event. Your method has one dragging a happy baby back to the clinic time and time again for what the baby perceives to be numerous traumatic events. Another doctor visit, another needle stick, when the baby could be happily playing away back home bonding with mom and learning about the world. Way to go Mom!
“You see, that is the cool thing about all of this. You get to identify experts and put yourself and your children in their hands, and if it means ignoring or dismissing any contradictory evidence you get to make that decision, too. This will make you feel better.”
I get to identify experts? Huh? I think you mean I pay attention to the overwhelming evidence of clinical studies and physicians. And theres simply no weighty counter evidence for me to to ignore. I’m not aware of any relevant or convincing evidence to the contrary, certainly you haven’t supplied any.
“If they are wrong (in delaying their infants immunizations), what is the downside?”
I’ve already explained the downside of this two you and provided a few studies. There is much more credible evidence about this on the internet. Please read about the issue. Btw, as medical procedures go the incidence of adverse reactions to vaccinations is very low. Here’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics (some of those “experts I’ve identified”, I suppose) had to say recently on the subject:
“Claims that vaccines are linked to autism, or are unsafe when administered according to the recommended schedule, have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature. It is dangerous to public health to suggest otherwise.
“There is no ‘alternative’ immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer.”
https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-Reiterates-Safety-and-Importance-of-Vaccines.aspx
I’m not emotional about this and I’m not taking it personally. It’s just funny to me to be confronted with such a silly view on the topic. According to your logic, the next time one of my children has an important health concern, I can consider following the advise of the scientific community and learned physicians who’ve dedicated their lives to the specifics of the health concern in question. They can tell me about vast numbers of rigorous studies backing up their prescription for what to do, but if a vet or a rancher I don’t know tells me they’ve observed contradictory results in livestock, I should think long and hard before doing what all those eggheads are telling me to do. OK then.
OK, whatever. All I know is, in this whole discussion JDGE1 is the one who presents actual facts, figures and data, I present actual clinical observations, and you ferociously flail at straw men (misquoting me so you can argue against what I never said) and seem to base your position on faith.
And you get to do that, just as you get to expound on what babies think and feel and their bonding with Mommy, etc. If you choose to believe that doctors and pharma are all omnipotent, who are never wrong and with nothing motivating them but the desire to do what is best for babies, you can do that. If you are convinced that medical science has reached its limits and there is nothing more to learn, you can take that position. It seems to bring you great comfort, and I think you should stick with it.
And I will be one of those who respects the scientists and doctors who are not willing to blindly accept the concept that this is as good at it gets, that there might be better ways to accomplish the same goals, who are open minded enough to pay attention to evidence and follow up on it, and even be guided by observations of outcomes. I think that’s kind of a definition of real science—-observing, and being willing to go where the observations take you, rather than saying “OK, now that I like what I know, from now on I reject anything that is different”.
This whole exchange has motivated me to go back and reread “Conflict of Visions” as it seems to illustrate the difference between the constrained and unconstrained worldviews Sowell describes.
I want to point something out here. It is not important to the discussion, which has deteriorated into abject silliness. It is something more significant.
In your last response, Rusty, you appeared to be quoting me, and then went on to explain what was wrong with what I said. I say “appeared to be quoting me” because you put the statement in italics, which we usually use to indicate a quote.
This is how it appeared in your response: In this case I am putting the entire thing in bold, because I am showing your use of italics in what is apparently supposed to be a quote from me, and then quoting the first part of your response.
“If they are wrong (in delaying their infants immunizations), what is the downside?”
I’ve already explained the downside of this two you and provided a few studies.
What is wrong with this is that you inserted a claim, made by you, refuted over and over again by me, that I am advocating “delaying” immunizations. This is the straw man you have worked so diligently to destroy,
Here is what I said when I started off with “If they are wrong, what is the downside?”
If they are wrong, what is the downside? A few more car trips, some inconvenience, a couple more injections. They will never know for sure if their prudence, or paranoia, made a difference—but they will also have no regrets.
Clearly there is no reference to “delaying” immunizations. And there never has been, except when you misstate what I have said.
Your entire objection to my position has been that it advocates delaying vaccinations so they occur outside the recommended time frame. And I have never, not once, advocated any such thing. On the contrary, I have repeatedly explained that I concur with the science that says certain vaccinations are better if given at certain ages. I did not use those exact words, but that is the message I was conveying in my various examples. You were even compelled to argue with the statement of mine I quoted, above:
If they are wrong, what is the downside? A few more car trips, some inconvenience, a couple more injections. They will never know for sure if their prudence, or paranoia, made a difference—but they will also have no regrets.
You replied: Your method has one dragging a happy baby back to the clinic time and time again for what the baby perceives to be numerous traumatic events. Another doctor visit, another needle stick, when the baby could be happily playing away back home bonding with mom and learning about the world. following up with a sneer at a mother who might choose to space out her baby’s vaccinations with a snide Way to go Mom! Wow. So acting in what she thinks is her baby’s best interests makes her a bad mother?
Wow.
Or maybe just not doing things your way makes her a bad mother.
Something about the posts on possible dangers of infant vaccination got you riled up, and the only way you can express your indignation is to attack something that was not only never said but was corrected, strongly and clearly, when you referred to it.
I don’t care what you think about batch vaccinations for infants, or the intellectual ability of ranchers and vets, or the mothering instincts of women who make decisions you don’t like. What I am talking about here is the laser focus on one certain point you find to be very important, so much so that you invent things to allow you to expound on it.
It is this and this ONLY, that I find so odd. We all have differences of opinion, but most do not become so incensed at disagreement, and certainly most do not have to invent opposing points of view to allow them to continue to emote.
“OK, whatever. All I know is, in this whole discussion JDGE1 is the one who presents actual facts, figures and data…”
No, I’m the only one who’s done that. Near I can tell, JDGE1 has not provided one iota of proof to back up his assertions. I have. If I’ve missed some evidence from JDGE1, please present it (after so many exchanges I’m STARVED for just a morsel of evidence that supports your argument!)
”(I) seem to base (my) position on faith.”
Wow. I present study after study comprising decades of research supporting my view and you call that faith. Wow.
“If you choose to believe that doctors and pharma are all omnipotent, who are never wrong and with nothing motivating them but the desire to do what is best for babies, you can do that. If you are convinced that medical science has reached its limits and there is nothing more to learn, you can take that position.”
I never said nor indicated anything remotely like like these things you attribute to me. Apparently, you misread my posts as thoroughly as you misread clinical studies.
“And I will be one of those who respects the scientists and doctors who are not willing to blindly accept the concept that this is as good at it gets, that there might be better ways to accomplish the same goals, who are open minded enough to pay attention to evidence and follow up on it, and even be guided by observations of outcomes. I think that’s kind of a definition of real science—-observing, and being willing to go where the observations take you, rather than saying “OK, now that I like what I know, from now on I reject anything that is different”.”
You have this completely backward. The doctors and scientists I’m basing my information on ARE the ones who “are open minded enough to pay attention to evidence and follow up on it, and even be guided by observations of outcomes”. That’s where all of that published research I’ve been presenting comes from. It’s a pity you can’t understand it and apparently have no idea of the process it took to reach those conclusions (hint: it’s in the “methodology” section of those published papers. That section tells you all of the careful protocols the scientists employed in formulating….oh, never mind!)
YOU are the one who’s rejecting the scientific method and the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community and physicians. You “like what you know” (your observation of livestock) and are “rejecting anything that is different” (the solid science on human infants which contradict your observations), even though if you presented the argument you’re making here to an actual pediatrician you’d be the butt of his jokes at his cocktail parties for years to come.
OK, so with your last post we’re finally getting somewhere. So, if you “concur with the science that says certain vaccinations are better if given at certain ages” then you are indeed talking about spacing out those few times inoculations are called for in batches within the recommended time frame, that is, WITHIN ONE MONTH OF EACH OTHER. So you think it’s likely a dandy alternative that rather than give little Johnny his six vaccinations in his second month in one visit, you give Johnny, say, 2 shots in the first week of his second month, 1 shot in the next week, 1 shot in the following week, and 2 more shots in the last week of that month.
My question is: on what basis (besides observations of livestock) do you claim this? What information inspires you to think this is a good idea over the proven, safe recommended course?
I’ve pointed out the downsides to this approach which are not inconsiderable no matter what you might think. New parents are unbelievably stressed out and busy as it is without having to coordinate several unnecessary doctor appointments within one month. Is little Johnny more likely to die in an auto accident in one car trip or in five? And believe me, little Johnny would much rather get those sticks at once than spread out over 4 or 5 times. Other parents know what I’m talking about. BTW, as I’ve pointed out before, even if one follows the recommendations and inoculates within the recommended month, if one’s spacing them out they are by definition delaying vaccinations. A pediatrician may agree to a spacing schedule (many won’t) and give little Johnny just 2 shots on his first two month visit while withholding 4, but most won’t feel good about letting little Johnny go out into the world, even for only a few weeks, without the full immunization he could have safely received that day. So in that case we’re still inoculating within the recommended time AND delaying, see how that works? So yeah Ama, you are advocating delaying immunizations, even if you’re spacing them out within the one month, and the downside is the baby gate a disease.
“Or maybe just not doing things your way makes her a bad mother.”
No, not following the best and latest science of pediatrics, without any good reason for doing so, makes one a bad mother.
So no invention or straw men on my part Ama, only clarification. Have I mischaracterized your position in any way in this post? If so, please explain.
“I have repeatedly explained that I concur with the science that says certain vaccinations are better if given at certain ages. I did not use those exact words, but that is the message I was conveying in my various examples.”
No you haven’t. That would mean you’ve been talking only about spacing them out WITHIN ONE MONTH. What you clearly said was (my emphasis):
”When you have WEEKS or MONTHS to vaccinate with all the recommended vaccines, they simply do not have to be given in batches.”
“We’re not talking about a tiny little window here. We are talking about WEEKS AND EVEN MONTHS.”
”(A study I linked to) is talking about the difference between vaccinating prior to the first birthday and waiting till after that. THAT GIVES A FULL YEAR in which to vaccinate….”
Now where would one get the impression that you were advocating for DELAYING vaccinations from the recommended schedule and therefore UNDERVACCINATING? From your own words, that’s where. Now you’re pretending you never said those things. I think now’s the time you say “Never Mind!”
“Your entire objection to my position has been that it advocates delaying vaccinations so they occur outside the recommended time frame. And I have never, not once, advocated any such thing.”
You didn’t advocate it just once, you advocated it at least three times (see above).
Yawn…………..
I’ll take that as a “Never Mind!”
…or take it the way it is meant, which is that there are few things as tiresome as endless wrangling over nonsense. You have it set in your mind that I said things I did not say, and meant things I did not mean, in defense of things I did not defend, and after several efforts to point this all out, all met with even more insistence that I did so say these things, mean these things, and defend these things, I realized that whatever has made you believe what you clearly believe, I am never going to change any of it.
Whatever tripped your trigger on this was a doozy. I don’t know if you are a pediatrician or a drug rep or what, but JDGE1 and I sure stepped on a couple of very sensitive toes, and when you started to go completely off the rails, several posts back, I should have stepped out of the exchange then. When I was never arguing with any of your positions but merely pointing out there are other valid positions as well, and you continued to escalate your increasingly odd and confrontational comments, it was time to leave, and I stayed too long. Looking back, I should have seen your comment “A persons body will be stimulated to have a reaction to a paper cut, but it’s no big deal for a healthy individual. Will two paper cuts be dire for that person?” as a signpost of silliness and irrelevancies to come. I will try to learn from this.
If it will soothe you to believe that I am admitting I was mistaken, in an Emily Litella moment, well you just go right ahead and do what makes you feel better. You’ll be patting yourself on the back and I’ll be thinking of the knight on the path in the Monty Python movie.
“You have it set in your mind that I said things I did not say, and meant things I did not mean, in defense of things I did not defend
“
Nope, you’re pretending you didn’t say things you did say, and didn’t state positions you actually stated, but I’ve just listed them right above in black and white. You can try to ooze back out of your arguments all you like, but it’s all up there!
I’d like you to point me to the point I went “off the rails”. Was it when I presented scientific studies?
“I was never arguing with any of your positions but merely pointing out there are other valid positions as well“
See, that’s your problem all along, you never pointed out an alternative valid position at all.
No hard feelings.
Been there, done that, caught on to the fact that it wouldn’t make any difference, life is too short to remain in this infinite loop of meaningless wrangling. No thanks.
Ben Shapiro nails it:
Rights that derive from individual need inevitably violate individual autonomy.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443737/health-care-markets-government-commodity-human-right
Ben does indeed nail it. This tweet from one of his detractors reflects the dangerous attitude of too many in this country:
I assume that this person finds Leftism, in its history and applications and outcomes, to be the opposite of “soullessness”. I’d like to engage in that debate.
Yeah, me too.
Shapiro’s article says, rightly, “Medical care is a service and a good provided by a third party. ”
That is right, as far as it goes, but it still does not make it clear that when the Left talks about “health CARE” they are really talking about contracts between people and companies which then contract with medical providers to pay their fees.
It may sound like quibbling, but it defuses some of the emotional content of the term “health care”. The word “contract” just doesn’t have the emotional heft as the word “care” or the term “health care” but that is really what we are, or at least should, be discussing. What is the best way to make these contracts available to the most people at the most affordable cost? And doesn’t it make sense to allow people the freedom to chose a contract that best meets their needs?
Obviously, we need to let dogs vote.
Italian researchers found that dogs wag their tails slightly to the right when they see something they like and to the left when they’re confronted with something they want to back away from.
http://www.rd.com/advice/pets/pet-secrets/1/?trkid=ppc-outbrain-et-dt
More evidence to support the perception and belief that Marco Rubio is an intellectual lightweight and far too easily swayed by what might gain him the most approval. I don’t know if he lacks analytical ability or if he understands reality but postures in whatever way he thinks will please the most people, but his flightiness is annoying. I never understood why people thought so highly of him.
“Do you believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that Russian intelligence services directed a campaign of measures involving the hacking of emails, the strategic leak of emails, the use of internet trolls, and dissemination of fake news to denigrate a presidential candidate and undermine faith in our election process?” Rubio asked.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/11/9-takeaways-from-rex-tillersons-confirmation-hearing-to-be-trumps-secretary-of-state
the use of internet trolls
Bob Eisenhower?
LOL.
OK, this is not about internet trolls so much as the development of some fake news. Reading the comments section of an article I ran across a couple of long comments that turned out to be transcripts from a radio talk show, in which the caller explained how the “sex scandal” thing about Trump’s alleged perversions developed..
I realize that the information on how the whole scam developed could be the fake news—–it can be hard to sort things out—but it is really interesting.
I think the transcript is from the first couple of minutes.
Part of the call: emphasis mine
“Um, this started back in January of 2016. So, after that, we kind of got together and wrote some, you know – it was all joke stories. What’s funny is like half these things, like, things that you read about the pee stuff – that, all most of it came from Rick Wilson’s son. We found that his son was writing stuff like this on the internet. So, we kind of like compiled a little joke story and it was just meant to annoy Rick Wilson.
So, Rick Wilson got it and he took it – he didn’t understand that a lot of it was written by his son or was based off of things that his son wrote. Um, so, Rick Wilson passed it up the chain through McMullen.
Kuhner: Ok, now Tom, before you continue I want to ask you this…Because what you said to us on the phone was you were kind of ‘in on this’, correct?
Tom: Yeah, a lot of us got together and we were – and we came up with a joke story…
Kuhner: Basically a joke story, what they call ‘fan fiction’.
Tome: Yeah,
Kuhner: And, Rick Wilson, what you said, is an establishment Republican, a big #NeverTrump’er, close with the Bush’s – Jeb Bush, but also with ties to Marco Rubio and John McCain, correct?
Tom: Correct.
Kuhner: Ok, and then so, you pushed it to Rick Wilson. He obviously took the bait. Then, what did he do with the info?
Tom: Ok, so then, um, somehow , I don’t know if it was him or one of the members of his staff – but they presented it to McMullen, uh, and then, uh, who you know what pages he’s got ties to and uh, then McMullen passed it onto McCain and then McCain passed it on to Comey and now at some point in these transactions a lot of, uh, more Russian stuff was added so that not all of this – a lot of the things were changed in it and like the Russians , uh, they put more of a Russian spin on it than what we had originally come up with.
Kuhner: The five years that they had been cultivating Trump that they had been cultivating for five years – and they wanted him to buy properties and hotels and they tried to put sweeteners in there to hook him in. Right, all of that was, I think that was added by the CIA – correct, Tom?
Tom: Yeah, yeah. These are all fake things that they just put a spin on it. Which is funny, that they just throw it into a story that they thought was true to begin with. And, um, what they – ok, so, after that, like, we put in things like’ Manafort’. If you know that towards the end,’ Manafort ‘ is misspelled three different times. And so, we put that in on purpose to see if (transmission is garbled) it would….” and the connection was lost.
Fake news has become so rampant that it’s almost impossible to trust anything you read, see or hear unless it’s original thought or research coming from someone you know and trust. It’s an extraordinarily dangerous phenomenon, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse. I’ve always prided myself on being a seeker of the truth regardless of where it leads. The current trend is getting extremely frustrating, and I find myself arguing with people I normally agree with because they’re repeating things that I know, or at least suspect to be untrue.
It is difficult – and for younger people, even harder than for us. You and I older folks at least were taught some real history…and someone like me has read deeply on it. This allows one to have a sort of internal “fact checker”; life experiences also work into that…we’ve all fallen for it at one time or another, and once you’ve been conned, it is easier to detect them.
When Matt and I were writing Worst we came across a lot of stories which would have made the book more interesting if we could have confirmed them in some reasonable way. We automatically rejected stories which had only a sole source – had to be at least two, and one of them had to be incontrovertible. We preferred more than that, of course. I still have my standing defiance to anyone who wants to dispute the book: find even one thing we’ve got in there which is false. If we’ve got it wrong, then so does just about every possible source of responsible information got it wrong, because we used them all, in one form or another. The thing is to sift carefully – even on things which “everybody knows it happened”. Some times, what “everyone” knows is either a complete fabrication, or lacks sufficient proof to back it up as worthy to be included in a non-fiction book. At least, a book where the authors (a) want to tell the truth and (b) know that if even a single falsehood gets in there, the left will proclaim the entire book false.
My reaction to this claim is that even if the claim itself–that the caller, Tom, was part of what was supposed to be a joke that morphed into a fake news story amplified by the CIA, which added what it knew to be false to a story it might have believed to be true—-was false, there is still a message there.
If Rick Wilson’s son did not invent the Trump-liking-to-watch-women-pee story (and you have to admit, this IS the kind of thing a couple of kids would find hysterical), but anyway if the story really did come from some Russian sources, the real take-away here is that the CIA is now so discredited that a story about them inventing things and putting them out as fact is very believable.
When I went through the story and threw out everything that could not be verified, all that was left was a lack of surprise at the idea that the CIA would have done something like this. And that is a sad commentary on where this nation has gone in the past few years.
Looks like the inauguration protests are proceeding.
One of the commenters on Oath Keepers website a couple days ago with ties to D.C. LE said he had it from a reliable source that there will be between 10,000 and 15,000 military, national guard, federal, state and local LE as well as numerous under cover LE in and around D.C. this next week, and this article confirms that and then some. Gonna be interesting.
The Daily Signal also has excellent coverage on what to expect next Friday.
It just keeps getting better and better (or worse and worse, depending on your perspective).
I’ve heard an angle which says that a lot of people, including some senior Republicans, had a hand in putting this whole thing together. The Never Trump people are still just lapping it up…but, there’s no there, there. Key to the whole thing being false in my view is the assertion that Russia started courting Trump in 2011. Why in heck would the Russians do that? I’m sure the Russian Foreign office has people who are deeply informed about the United States…if our experts have been sure for years that Hillary would have a walk-over in 2016, why would any Russian expert think differently? And while there were hints and rumors of a Presidential run by Trump for years, there was nothing to make such an idea solid until early 2015. As I always say, you add an ounce of lie to a pound of truth, you get one pound, one ounce of lie. That “tell” in the dossier was, for me, what “CYA” was in the alleged National Guard memo about Bush…the falsehood which demonstrated that the whole thing was bogus.