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@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
@mbalter
Jun 19 • 4 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
1/ This @NewYorker piece by Keith Gessen asking “who lost Russia?” is an important read and I highly recommend it. The main takeaway for me is the effect that Western advice and pressures had on sending the entire Soviet block… newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…
2/ into poverty, except for the fraction of their populations that got rich (the two sides of the coin always go together, despite the trickle down illusions of some.) While the worst period, eg in Russia, might have been mostly the first decade after the fall of…
3/ Communism, it left a lasting political legacy of right-wing movements and even fascism. The West encouraged an extreme version of laissez-faire capitalism that was never acceptable in any Western country. The results were predictable and paved the way for Putin.
4/ While I reject the simplistic views of some fellow leftists that NATO and EU expansion explain or even justify the Russian invasion of #Ukraine, we could have made different choices—and so too, Gessen wisely concludes, could have the Russians.

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More from @mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 21
1/ There’s something truly extraordinary about this piece in @nytimes today by national security reporter @julianbarnes. While it very briefly refers to reports in the Sunday Times and Public/Racket about intel concerning the Wuhan Inst Virology, research…
2/ conducted there, and the names of three allegedly sick researchers, there is absolutely no discernible attempt by the reporter to confirm or debunk that earlier reporting. Any national security reporter worth his or her salt has sources who could do that. Instead…
3/ the article concentrates solely and exclusively on giving the perspectives of intel officials and investigators on the supposed limitations of the evidence, which Barnes apparently has not seen himself. To make matters worse, Barnes does not tell us why…
Read 6 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 21
1/ So #Republicans are passing bills in a number of red states forbidding anyone from using a bathroom that does not coincide with the sex they were assigned at birth, regardless of their current gender identity. I am wondering what it is they really want?
2/ Let’s do a little thought experiment. Caitlin Jenner is at the airport and she has to use the restroom. So she goes into the women’s room, one or more women in their get upset and make her leave. 3/ So then she goes into the men’s room next door, with her dress and long…
4/ hair, and some men get upset and make her leave (hopefully peacefully, although she is taking a risk no matter which restroom she goes into.) So where is she supposed to use the restroom? Perhaps there is a gender neutral restroom/toilet, perhaps there is not…
Read 10 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 20
1/ A few comments on today's @WSJ story confirming earlier reports that three named researchers at the Wuhan Inst Virology who worked closely on coronaviruses (esp SARS-like viruses) got sick in Nov 2019 of Covid-like symptoms (Accssible: archive.is/2023.06.20-140…)
2/ The story gave credit to the Substack blog Public which published the names of the researchers last week. It also gave a lot of credit to @WhiteCoatWaste and its dogged work over the past few years to dig out documents the U.S. government did not want public.
3/ Crediting other reporters and publications is an obligation often honored in the breach (@nytimes has been particularly bad about this although lately it has been getting better.) 4/ The WSJ reporters independently confirmed the previously published information...
Read 10 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 20
1/ As the gaslighting that the lab origins hypothesis for #COVID19 is just some crazy “conspiracy theory” steadily loses effectiveness in the fact of growing evidence, journalists should note that it’s still not too late to catch up with the story. Here are some leads:
2/ And here are some more. The difference between members of DRASTIC (and independent reporters) and mainstream science journalists is that the former actually investigated Covid-19 origins, while the latter cozied up to their favored sources and copied down what they said.
3/ I’ve written a fair bit myself about why so many journalists have failed to properly report the origins story. Here is one piece for the Society of Profressional Journalists magazine, Quill: quillmag.com/2023/04/04/cov…
Read 5 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 19
1/ Two claims central to the #COVID19 origins debate have now been published, apparently based on U.S. intel sources. First, that three researchers at the Wuhan Inst Virology got sick with something resembling Covid-19 during fall 2019. Second, that WIV researchers did…
2/ indeed insert furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses. As @Ayjchan has suggested, if these claims are considered well supported by the intel community, then the origins debate is over and a lab origin will be established within reasonable doubt….
3/ The furin cleavage site is key to getting at the truth, because how it got into the virus—through natural recombination, or either via genetic engineering or serial passage in cell cultures or animal models—is an unambiguous indicator of pandemic origins…
Read 7 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 18
1/ If the intel agencies are going to miss the deadline for declassifying what they have on Covid-19 origins, which it appears they will, it’s odd that the mainstream #media does not have an update for us on how far along they are, whether they have asked for an extension…
2/ (which presumably can only be granted by Congress itself by amending the law), or even if they have done any work on this at all. Perhaps @nytimes, @washingtonpost, and other media have stories about this all ready to go; or perhaps the Biden Admin is a scofflaw…
3/ I assume we can count on leading members of Congress to start asking questions soon, or tell us what they know, since the vote was unanimous in both chambers. That should be bipartisan, of course, unless #Democrats think violating the law that Biden signed is okay.
Read 6 tweets

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