A Special (Mostly) Kennedy Episode

Plus: Was RFK Jr. made in a lab in Wuhan?

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A Special (Mostly) Kennedy Episode

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Peter Suderman and Katherine Mangu-Ward host not one but two special guests! Reason's own Liz Wolfe and the one and only Kennedy. Buckle up and enjoy as they cover new reporting that lends legitimacy to the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins, the candidacy of RFK Jr., and the Wagner Group's recent revolt in Russia. Huzzah!

2:20 - New reporting supplies legitimacy to lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins

19:59 - The candidacy of RFK Jr.

45:04 - Weekly Listener Question

48:13 - Wagner Group's armed revolt in Russia

57:09 - This week's cultural recommendations

Mentioned in this podcast:

"COVID-19's 'Patients Zero' May Have Been Wuhan Lab Scientists, Report Finds" by Robby Soave

"Lab Leak Theory: 1, Misinformation Cops: 0" by Robby Soave

"The Very Strange New Respect for Authoritarian Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr." by Matt Welch

"Joe Biden More Vulnerable in 2024 Primary Than Donald Trump Ever Was in 2020" by Matt Welch

"Do Conservatives Actually Like RFK Jr., or Do They Just Think He'll Hurt Biden?" Joe Lancaster

"Taxing the Rich Will Have No Meaningful Effect on Our Sky-High National Debt" by Veronique De Rugy

"Anticlimactic End to Wagner Group's Armed Rebellion in Russia" by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Audio production by Ian Keyser

Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

What are we consuming this week?

Liz Wolfe

• Amy

Kennedy

• The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Starlink-89 (5-12) Mission (Falcon 9) Rocket Launch

Peter Suderman

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin

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[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origins

Who cares? No one is proposing war with China.

Everyone can agree the most important issue today is Trannie Dancing/Gay Beer.

[JesseAz]

Just a multi trillion dollar cost to the countries around the globe. Who cares.

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[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

Did Donnie say hew would bill China for Covid?

Kind of like how he made Mexico pay for his border wall?

[Mike Laursen]

The CCP is going to have enough trouble on its hands when the people of China find out about the lab leak.

[Idaho Bob]

Delusional.

The US gov't suppressed this story and shamed anyone who dared question anything for three years. The CCP is much better squashing information.

[Mike Laursen]

Cool, I'm delusional in your eyes. And you are paranoid in mine.

[Mother's Lament]

I don't think you're delusional, Mike.
Just a bien pensant Democrat making excuses for his 3 year lapse into unwarranted authoritarianism. The fact that your downplaying your own rhetoric indicates you recognize the harm Team Establishment caused.

[JesseAz]

His paranoia has been far more correct than your delusion. Almost batting 100.

[DesigNate]

Said the man who takes the term Christian Nationalist seriously.

[JesseAz]

Did Donnie cause governors to shut down states? Confused as to your blame shift to Trump here. But then again you think Schiff is an honest politician. Meh.

[Mike Laursen]

It’s important because it justifies hating on Fauci, which is a popular right-wing pastime that started when they saw that left-wingers had started adulating Fauci.

Of course, a normal, non-partisan person would not spend any time thinking about Fauci either way — and get on with their life.

[JesseAz]

Wow. Talk about rationalizing for 4 years of your state covid worship.

[Homer Thompson]

who other than a paid shill would post something like this ... no one can like fauci or government this much

[Mike Laursen]

Where did I express any like for Fauci?

[JesseAz]

Leave Fauci alone screams Mike.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

a normal, non-partisan person would not spend any time thinking about Fauci

I'm normal then. I got tired of seeing Fauci but I got sick of all the lockdown talk by elected politicians early on.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Normal people do not post links to kiddie porn.

[Mike Laursen]

"seeing Fauci but I got sick of all the lockdown talk by elected politicians"

Those are two distinct things, though.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Those elected politicians were just following The Science, and as Fauci publicly declared, He Was The Science.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Or as Reason put it, that baked college friend in the back seat saying "turn left, dude" when you should have turned right.

[Mike Laursen]

You know you are quoting Laura Ingraham, not Fauci, right?

[R Mac]

Disingenuous cunt.

“So it's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/11/28/fauci_responds_to_critics_when_people_criticize_me_they_are_criticizing_science.html

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Mike watches the news, so he would be completely unaware of Fauci literally saying just that.

[Mike Laursen]

No, he didn’t.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It’s important because it justifies hating on Fauci, which is a popular right-wing pastime that started when they saw that left-wingers had started adulating Fauci.

Yeah, you're on to something here. No one had an independent thought about Fauci until James Corden started loving on him. It was only then that Right Wing Fanatics became skeptical. Up until that moment, 100% of everyone was perfectly on board with a 50 yr unelected civil servant.

[Mother's Lament]

Yeah, it's not like there was a book about Fauci's graft-riddled shenanigans 35 years ago, with a later movie based on it.

Oh wait...

[Mike Laursen]

Another Diane/Paul Conflation Special.

[Alla Backenstose]

You should try to avoid using words you don't understand, Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq. Remember how you kept confusing legal terms and had to retire your Bo Cara Esq. account after your 7th year in law school? This would be kind of like that.

[Alla Backenstose]

You should also try to avoid simping to the pedophile who got banned for posting dark web links to hardcore child pornography, but I know that's hard to do when you guys attend the same NAMBLA meetings.

[DesigNate]

Hahahahahahahahahaha

[Mother's Lament]

"It’s important because it justifies hating on Fauci, which is a popular right-wing pastime that started when they saw that left-wingers had started adulating Fauci."

Which was really weird as lefties had hated Fauci for the previous 35 years.

Mike's memory apparently only goes back a single news cycle.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Mike has this memory of a goldfish.

[Bill Falcon]

Fauci spent most of his time at the outbreak stiffing any questions around the origin which is bizarre in hindsight. He was covering his ass while giving inconsistent guidance on masks and how best to deal with a virus that had very low fatality rate unless you were old and/or had some preexisting lung condition.
I met Fauci during an AIDS talk he gave in 1984 at my college. I was a Biochemistry major and talked to him for a few minutes after his talk. I was underwhelmed then. He was more of an administrator and not a research scientist.

[DesigNate]

Leave Fauci alone! Leave him allloonnnee!!!!1!1!

[Terran]

"Of course, a normal, non-partisan person would not spend any time thinking about Fauci either way — and get on with their life."

The irony of the first comment mentioning Fauci... Thank you for coming out and saying that you aren't normal and are partisan.

[Mike Laursen]

I spoke the truth.

[MT-Man]

That's a bad take he was and is a terrible person that shouldn't get a pass.

[Mike Laursen]

What exactly is “shouldn’t get a pass”?

[DesigNate]

Lol, and just like clock work, the demfag posts his “okay it happened, but that’s old news” talking point.

Never change, retard.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Maybe they should try making a grown up version of this magazine.

[Mother's Lament]

A TeenReason for adults? But then where would we get our hot takes?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Plus: Was RFK Jr. made in a lab in Wuhan?

lol

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Yeah I just trashed Reason on another thread for not covering this guy and then saw this. I really should listen to this giggling, back slapping love fest. But as usual I'm hoping someone else will so I don't have to. Literally dozens of people actually listen to these podcasts. If one of those could post the highlights I would certainly appreciate their efforts. Thanks in advance.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Serious question, who's deviating from principles here, the Free State Project in NH or Reason?

[Mike Laursen]

Most likely both. Pretty much all libertarians fail to perfectly follow libertarian principles.

[Alla Backenstose]

True, it's pretty much just you, drunky, cytotoxic and the pedophile who got banned for posting dark web links to hardcore child pornography.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

No idea, but it was dumb of the FSP to situate themselves behind enemy lines.

[Bill Falcon]

Only Nixon could go to China. Only RFJ jr can take on the neocons and the woke state. And one thing is for sure, he could kick any of the other candidates and old Corn Pop in the Octagon. I'll take a 1960's progressive versus the woke left of the Democratic party anyday. I've given up on stopping federal deficits and the Fed but if we can stop foreign wars/interventionism, stop the woke war on family and stop degeneracy ("trans" mutilation of kids)...I'm on board.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

He is a nut. He is a nuttier nut that ever nutted. He STILL thinks that vaccines cause autism. He thinks that AIDS is NOT caused by HIV. He thinks that polluted drinking water is what causes transgenderism. Oh and let's not forget the whole "climate deniers should go to jail" thing and the fact that his entire career has been one of an *environmental lawyer* - the kind that sues ExxonMobil, not defends them. He makes Lyndon LaRouche look sane. Why is anyone giving him anything but a giant round of laughter.

[R Mac]

What’s his position on bears in trunks?

[DesigNate]

In favor of them, obviously.

[R Mac]

WHAT A MONSTER!!

[Alla Backenstose]

If only he thought that COVID-19 came from raccoondogs, Trump got peed on by Russian hookers in Moscow, Putin hacked election machines in 2016, and an insurrection took place on January 6th of 2021 he'd almost be nutty enough to earn your vote. That is, if you were actually an American and not a lardass piece of shit fat fuck Canadian living in his mother's house in the greater Toronto area, cytotoxic.

[mogusjp]

Sorry for the long comment, but...

So, I think we have to be careful about taking speculation that someone like RFKJ makes and making quick judgement of the quality of the scientific literature they are referencing. As a scientist myself, I certainly have reservations about some published science, as I think that any good scientist should. However, basing your understanding of the credibility of the scientific work on a politician’s book is something I would strongly suggests against. Otherwise, you may dismiss reasonable scientific findings based on the poor interpretation of a politically motivated reader. For example, the original work showing that atrazine feminizes African clawed frogs is neither fringe nor a one-off. In fact, it is a heavily cited and vetted paper in both scientific and legal realms (checkout the legal battle between Tyrone Hayes and Syngenta, the manufacturer of Atrazine at the time) [1]. In reality, atrazine has been very well studied, not just for its feminization of frog gonads, appearance, and behavior, but also for the specific molecules that it acts upon to do this (i.e. increases enzymatic conversion of androgens to estrogens) and effects in several species [2, Several Reviewed in 3]. Furthermore, atrazine’s effects are so well documented that it has become a model for understanding systems of hormone disruption.

Anyways, my point here isn’t about fleeing for your life because of the evil atrazine monster, but rather that the seminal work on the effects of atrazine donot suggest that the chemical makes frogs or your kids “transgender”. The term transgender in this context has little to do with natural frog populations as far we know anyways. It is a term for humans meant to describe human behavior and human identity of gender. The early atrazine papers show strong (and later reproduced) evidence of male frogs treated with low levels of atrazine developing female body patterning, female like reproductive behaviors, and consistent development of both eggs and sperm within the testes among other effects (see citations below). These things do not typically occur in nature for the tested species. The principal expert posits in some of their papers that this could be a concern for humans based on the biological evidence in frogs and the molecular function that atrazine has shown to disrupt in isolated cells or other model species. That’s it. They do not claim anything about transgendered humans to my knowledge. Though atrazine has been associated with several aspects of human health, follow-up to this work did not suggest transgenderism in humans is a result of atrazine exposure. The person who suggested this connection was RFKJ.

I understand it takes a lot of time and effort to move past what a politician references and actually read through complicated cited material. But failing to do so can leave out important context. I do think there is a growing habit for scientists to over-interpret scientific findings from model species into human experience. I think the social sciences are especially guilty of this. However, I also think this disregard for scientific objectivity remains the strategy of only a minority of scientists and something that many other scientists are actively working to reduce. So, please be careful and consider that there is a difference between the quality of scientific process/data and the interpretation that someone who reads it can make.

(1) Hayes, Tyrone B., et al. "Hermaphroditic, demasculinized frogs after exposure to the herbicide atrazine at low ecologically relevant doses." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99.8 (2002): 5476-5480.
(2) Hayes, Tyrone, et al. "Atrazine-induced hermaphroditism at 0.1 ppb in American leopard frogs (Rana pipiens): laboratory and field evidence." Environmental health perspectives 111.4 (2003): 568-575.
(3) Hayes, Tyrone B. "There is no denying this: defusing the confusion about atrazine." Bioscience 54.12 (2004): 1138-1149.

[mtrueman]

“follow-up to this work did not suggest transgenderism in humans is a result of atrazine exposure. The person who suggested this connection was RFKJ.”

I don’t think it’s implausible and is worthy of further investigation. Even if it takes money, time and energy to get answers. What RFK jr is suggesting is called an hypothesis, the first step, often based only on intuition and gut feeling, in any scientific endeavor.

I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if exposure to certain chemicals worked in a similar way across species. Anesthetics work across kingdoms! (ie several steps up (or is it down) the taxonomic ladder.) Ones that work on humans also work on plants, and vice versa. (See Paco Calvo’s Planta Sapiens since you’re into the whole foot note thing.)

https://libgen.li/edition.php?id=143015711 (The book is about plant intelligence, not frogs or RFK Jr)