How cheap Chinese tires might explain Russia's 'stalled' 40-mile-long military convoy in Ukraine

Peter Weber, Senior editor

ROLLING STONE

Thu, March 3, 2022

As the eighth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine began Thursday morning, Russian forces appeared to have gained tactical control of their first city, the southern port city of Kherson, but Ukraine is still holding out in Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv, despite heavy shelling. Deaths are mounting on both sides.

Big explosions were heard in Kyiv overnight, but according to the British Defense Ministry's Thursday morning update, the main body of the 40-mile-long Russian military convoy advancing on the capital remains nearly 20 miles from the city center, "having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown, and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days."

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby gave a similar prognosis on Wednesday, saying the "stalled" column hasn't, "from our best estimates, made any appreciable progress in the last 24-36 hours," possibly because the Russians are "regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up the lost time," but probably also due to "logistics and sustainment challenges" and "resistance from the Ukrainians."

Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staff specialist and military history blogger, suggests another big reason may be Russia's tires, as he explained in a long, illustrated Twitter thread based on photos of deserted Russian Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile systems and his own experience as a U.S. Army vehicle auditor. "When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end," the sidewalls get brittle in the sun and fail like the tires on the Pantsir-SR, he wrote. "No one exercised that vehicle for one year."

Karl Muth, an economist, government adviser, and self-described "tire expert," jumped in, agreeing with Telenko but adding some details about the tires.



"There is a huge operational level implication in this," Telenko said. "If the Russian Army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1, they were too corrupt to exercise the trucks and wheeled [armored fighting vehicles] now in Ukraine," meaning "the Russians simply cannot risk them off-road during the Rasputitsa/mud season." That is a problem for the convoy in the north, he added. "The Crimea is a desert and the South Ukrainian coastal areas are dryer. So we are not seeing this there. But elsewhere the Russians have a huge problem for the next 4 to 6 weeks." Read Telenko's whole thread on Twitter.

WAS HE AUDITIONING FOR FOX
Russian Official Blames Ukraine Invasion Sanctions on Cancel Culture

Peter Wade
Thu, March 3, 2022

Russia’s foreign intelligence director alluded to cancel culture and claimed that Russia is suffering “a cancellation” as the world slaps sanctions on the nation for invading Ukraine.

“The masks have been dropped. The West is not just trying to surround Russia with a new Iron Curtain,” Russia’s Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin said on Thursday. “We are talking about attempts to destroy our state — its ‘cancellation,’ as it is now customary to say in a ‘tolerant’ liberal-fascist environment.”

Naryshkin’s comments appeared on Russian-language site RIA Novosti, which noted that they were initially posted on the website of SVR, the Russian intelligence agency. Paul Sonne, a national security reporter for The Washington Post, pointed them out on Twitter.




Naryshkin also noted that those describing a new Cold War between Russia and the West are mistaken. “Western politicians and commentators like to call what is happening a ‘new Cold War,'” he said. “It seems that historical parallels are not entirely appropriate here. If only because in the second half of the 20th century, Russia fought with the West on the distant approaches, and now the war has come to the very borders of our Motherland. So for us it is definitely not ‘cold’, but quite ‘hot.'”

Naryshkin’s comments come as commentators in the United States have invoked cancel culture to describe the international backlash against Russia.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Monica Crowley evoked cancel culture on Tuesday, telling Jesse Watters on Fox News that “Russia is now being canceled,” in part because of the sanctions. “Between the fierce Ukrainian resistance and the widespread international financial sanctions and boycotts and Russian teams being barred from international competitions, Russia is being canceled,” Crowley said. “It is a different world. This is not something that President Putin ever had anticipated.”

Jason Willick, a columnist for The Washington Post, invoked cancel culture in a tweet. “We are witnessing the first geopolitical ‘cancellation’ of the 21st century,” he wrote.

Crowley and Willick both defended the “cancellation.” Republican Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers did not, claiming in a tweet that the West “is trying to deplatform and debank Russia.”

Rogers’ tweet came as the U.S. and its European allies agreed to block Russian banks from accessing SWIFT, a financial messaging system that enables banks to make and accept payments. “This is just as wrong as invading Ukraine,” she added of the military operation that has resulted in widespread devastation throughout Ukraine and thousands of lives lost.

Regardless of the intentions of those cramming the fallout from a world-historical conflict into the rhetoric of American right-wingers trying to avoid accountability for bad behavior, it’s a pretty disconcerting that said rhetoric has now been co-opted by an official of the nation waging the invasion.

Well done, conservatives.

SNAFU
Ottawa police misjudged protesters who besieged Canada's capital - testimony

Thu, March 3, 2022
By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) - A three-week occupation of the center of Canada's capital last month resulted in part from police underestimating anti-government protesters by assuming they would leave within days, according to police sources and police leadership testimony.

That miscalculation was compounded by a reluctance to crack down on the demonstrators once they had become entrenched in downtown Ottawa, partly out of fear of escalation, a police source and multiple observers told Reuters.

The protesters initially rallied opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers, but the blockade became a demonstration against government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Police in riot gear using pepper spray and stun grenades cleared the "Freedom Convoy" participants from Ottawa the weekend of Feb. 20, days after Trudeau invoked unprecedented emergency powers.

"What they did ... they could have done on the first weekend. Their authorities were there, all along," said a source with knowledge of Ottawa Police operations who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss them.

Two days before the convoy drove into town, Ottawa's Police Services Board held a special meeting where police leadership repeatedly told their civilian oversight board they expected the convoy to leave two days after their expected arrival, according to a video recording of the meeting.

Deputy Chief Trish Ferguson told the meeting police were "well placed" in terms of resources and they had built-in "surge capacity" to deal with the protests.

Ottawa Police declined to comment on whether there was a failure in leadership, citing a review into police response to the "unlawful demonstration," and did not immediately respond to a question about whether they had the authority needed to clear the protesters when they first arrived.

In a police services board meeting before police cleared the occupation, interim chief Steve Bell said he thought the police response had been "adequate and effective."

"I wouldn't agree it's been a colossal failure of intelligence," Bell told the board. He would not say what advice led police to allow the vehicles downtown in the first place.

He acknowledged that police need to improve their intelligence gathering.

"We have to look at other, better ways to collect better, more timely information."

The protests paralyzed downtown Ottawa. As they dug in, then-Police Chief Peter Sloly called for almost 2,000 additional officers from provincial and federal forces.

What residents called a permissive police attitude may have stemmed in part from a lack of respect for Sloly, who was unpopular among his rank-and-file, or from fear of riling up hostile protesters, two city councillors and two criminologists said.

"Once it got to the point that the protest bedded in ... officers might think, 'We were put in this by bad management,'" said University of Ottawa criminologist Michael Kempa, who studies policing.

"What has been described as ineffective leadership has led to low officer engagement. Low officer engagement has further eroded that leadership."

But the police source said officers followed orders.

"In any large demonstration, they await a command decision. And that command decision comes from the executive level," he said. Ottawa police officers felt caught between a hands-off leadership approach and public anger at perceived inaction, the source added.

Sloly, who stepped down last month amid widespread dissatisfaction with police response, could not be reached for comment.

Sloly was an outsider who became Ottawa police chief in 2019 promising reform in part by repairing relationships with Black communities. He took flak from the police union when he suggested in September 2020 that systemic racism existed in the ranks.

Sloly "didn't have a chance" to win over his officers, said Eli El-Chantiry, a councillor and police services board member.

El-Chantiry was not on the board when he first spoke with Reuters but is now its chair after its previous chair was ousted.

Bell, the interim police chief, was asked at a board meeting last month, before the convoy was cleared, why the police response had been "inadequate" and whether officers were supporting the convoy, something he said they are investigating.

Ottawa Police would not tell Reuters how many officers are being investigated for complicity with the convoy.

Three members of the board resigned this week following reports one of them had attended the protests, although El-Chantiry said the member did so the first weekend and informed the board chair about it. The former member said he would issue a statement.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Snafu - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snafu
SNAFU is an acronym that is widely used to stand for the sarcastic expression Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. It is a well-known example of military acronym slang. It is sometimes bowdlerized to "all fouled up" or similar.[1] It means that the situation is bad, but that this is a normal state of affairs. The acronym is believed to have originated in the United States Marine Corps during World War II.

A Texas Telecom Company Allegedly Isolated Black Employees Into a Separate Room with Cameras, Now Ten Former Employees Have Won a $70 Million Federal Discrimination Suit


Nicole Duncan-Smith
Wed, March 2, 2022

A Texas jury has awarded nine Black and one white former employees of a telecom company $70 million after they won a racial discrimination lawsuit against their former employer.

The collective alleged the company not only punished Black people for checking their phones while on the clock but separated the Black employees into two surveilled rooms in the office for executives to monitor.

Stock photo – Pexels.com

They also said that if they left their desks without informing a manager or took breaks that lasted longer than a couple of minutes, they would be reprimanded, while their white counterparts would not.

A court ruled that Glow Networks Inc. and its parent company, CSS Corp exposed some of its former Black employees (and one white by extension of his advocacy for his Black co-workers) to a hostile work environment. The north Texas court awarded the group $70 million for the offense.

Court documents reveal there were originally fourteen members in the group suing Glow Networks, Inc., alleging that they had “both tangible actions, such as terminations and denials of promotions, and on the alleged creation of a hostile work environment.” However, four members of the group had claims that were dismissed by the court.

Joshua Yarbrough, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said that he witnessed institutional discrimination at the company. When he was a lead engineer at the company, he noticed the company installed surveillance cameras in two of the eleven rooms in their Dallas office.

He said, “The African-Americans were pushed right in front of the cameras, and we realized that we were watched closely.”

Glow did not dispute placing the cameras there but did not agree on his assessment of why they were placed there and the motive, court documents state.

Yarbrough also noticed his Black co-workers were not treated the same as the non-Black ones were, stating in the lawsuit, “You never knew if your job was on the line.”

He also believed Black employees did not receive promotions and he was personally restricted when it came down to job training.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he was demoted and replaced by the owner’s girlfriend, who was Arab and had less tenure and telecommunications experience. He was later told that he had to report to them, so he resigned and went to work for Samsung.

After leaving the job, he linked with others who felt they were not being treated well and filed a lawsuit.

“We decided to take it in our own hands and actually go to court and really fight for something that we really believe is not right,” Yarbrough said. “African-Americans deal with this type of thing every day.”

Documents state that Harom Pringle, one of the plaintiffs, testified that at the office Blacks were not allowed to sit together.

“Glow Networks Inc. is extremely disappointed in this jury verdict as we do not believe it comports with the law or the evidence,” Global CEO of Glow Networks, Dharamjeet Taunque, said in a statement after the ruling.

“Glow Networks prides itself on maintaining a diverse workforce free of discrimination/retaliation based on race or any other protected status,” Taunque continued. “We are currently exploring all available avenues on appeal.”

Court documents stated that the company believed that they demonstrated “reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any harassing behavior.”

However, many of those who filed the lawsuit stated in the lawsuit that they complained about experiencing discrimination while on the job to the Glow Networks management and the company’s human resources department. The plaintiffs said that no action was taken to address their concerns.

Another example of racial discrimination actually came from a white team leader who joined the other nine Black co-workers in the lawsuit. Matt Lofland pointed out that when he recommended two Black workers for a promotion the executives did not honor his co-sign.

Other signs of discrimination occurred when the company was undergoing seniority-based layoffs and Lofland observed that only high-performing Blacks were let go, he claimed. According to court documents, he said his manager Pauddar was told by Human Resources to fire his Black team members but would not.

He was allegedly told, “Don’t lay off any white people.” Pauddar then responded, “I am not making any decisions on [sic] based on [whether] somebody is white or Black or anything.”

Lofland, according to Judge Sean D. Jordan, who gave an opinion on the case, was able to substantiate claims that the cameras were installed in two rooms, and the company slowly started migrating all of its Black employees into them. He agreed that management held Black workers different phones and social break standards.

He also observed that management was targeting two of the plaintiffs for making noise about being treated unfairly.

When he made a formal complaint to human resources, Lofland was demoted. Like Yarbrough, he also resigned, saying, “Everybody’s equal and the same, and I’m just kind of a personality who has been the kind to stand up for people.”

Despite this being a discrimination case, the lawsuit was not filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The group, according to their lawyer Brian Sanford, decided to use the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and argue that their rights as citizens were violated because of their race.

Of the fourteen that originally filed the lawsuit, only ten will receive an award. The ruling will give each plaintiff $7 million apiece in damages.

UH OH

Philippines approves revival of nuclear power to help replace coal


The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is seen during a media tour

 around the BNPP compound in Morong town, Bataan province, Philippines

Wed, March 2, 2022

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has signed an executive order to include nuclear power in the country's energy mix, as authorities prepare for the phasing out of coal-fired power plants and after earlier efforts failed due to safety concerns.

The Feb. 28 order, made public on Thursday, could be a major milestone for an economy which suffers seasonal power outages and high electricity prices but will concern opponents of the move.

Signed three months before Duterte ends his single six-year term, the order also directs an inter-agency panel to look into reopening the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).


"The national government commits to the introduction of nuclear power energy into the state's energy mix," it stated.

Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi has backed nuclear power and said it could help alleviate supply issues and high costs.

Duterte said nuclear power would be tapped as a viable alternative baseload power source as the Philippines seeks to retire coal plants to help meet climate goals.

Previous attempts to pursue nuclear energy in the Philippines were halted over safety concerns, but the new plan is anchored to a proposal to revive BNPP, built in response to an energy crisis during the rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Completed in 1984, the plant was mothballed two years later following Marcos' ouster and the deadly Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Since 2009, BNPP has operated as a tourist attraction, helping defray the cost of maintaining it.

"The Duterte administration is about to leave a tarred legacy and is setting us up for another horror story like Chernobyl and Fukushima," Greenpeace campaigner Khevin Yu said, referring to the world's worst nuclear disasters.

Energy Undersecretary Gerardo Erguiza Jr said a regulatory framework for nuclear power still required legislation and its future also hinged on the agenda of the next administration.

The late dictator's son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who is the front-runner in the May presidential election, has said he plans to "revisit" the BNPP project, local media has reported.

(Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Ed Davies)

Headstone found in Washington yard returns to resting spot — but mystery still remains

Vancouver Police Department

Maddie Capron
Wed, March 2, 2022

A mysterious headstone was discovered out of place in a Washington front yard weeks ago, police said.

The grave marker was found Feb. 8 in Vancouver, police said. For weeks, police have been trying to find where it belonged.

“We are hoping to bring this headstone to its proper resting place,” the Vancouver Police Department said Feb. 28 on Facebook.

For weeks, police contacted local cemeteries searching for one that may be missing a headstone. They also checked online for cemeteries with someone with the name printed on the marker.

After having no luck, the police department hoped social media would be able to help investigators return the headstone. Officials posted pleas for information on Twitter and Facebook, hoping for a lead.

“Since none of that investigation led anywhere, we’re hoping the power of social media will work,” police said on Twitter.

A day later, police said the mystery was solved — somewhat. A cemetery in Woodland, about 20 miles north, confirmed the headstone belonged there, police said.

Officials at the cemetery will return it to “its rightful resting place,” according to the police department. However, the investigation isn’t over yet.

“Mystery not completely solved, since we don’t know who moved this headstone and put it in a Vancouver yard,” police said March 1 on Facebook.

Given their problems, Iowa hog farmers should stay out of California 'bacon law' debate



Reader submissions
Wed, March 2, 2022

Idyllic hog farms? Not quite

The Desert Sun published an opinion by guest columnist Dwight Mogler on Feb. 21.

Mogler describes the idyllic conditions in which his hogs are raised. He is upset about California's Proposition 12 "Bacon Law" and the effect it may have on his farm and the pork industry.

The description of his farm does not address the pollution caused by his and large corporate farms. The Des Moines Register published an article on the same day headlined, "About half of Iowa's waterways listed as impaired in biannual DNR report."

The story links to others that describe the damage to Iowa's waterways, including:

increasing water pollution contaminating the Raccoon River, a main water source for a urban population of 500,000.


the water department in Des Moines digging new wells and investing in expensive filtration systems as river water could not be purified.

Another news article in January told of a farmer charged with neglect after 800 pigs on his farm died. There have been stories of deaths related to manure pits on farms.

I am the son of a third-generation hog farmer and worked on the family farm as a child and young adult. I chose a different direction, going to college and into the medical field.

I would suggest Mogler clean up the manure in his own backyard before he wades into California politics.

Ken Wetjen, Cathedral City

It’s Official: Trump’s ‘Impenetrable’ Border Wall Is An Expensive Failure

Ed Mazza
Thu, March 3, 2022

Former President Donald Trump promised his supporters an “impenetrable” border wall between the United States and Mexico. Instead, the $15 billion wall was reportedly breached thousands of times in areas where it was completed, and the smugglers who cut through it were able to do so with cheap power tools available in retail stores.

Unpublished data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection obtained via the Freedom of Information Act showed that Mexican smugglers cut through the wall 3,272 times over three years, according to The Washington Post. In some cases, they replaced the areas they cut with tinted putty, essentially creating secret passages.

“You have to look really closely to see it,” one source told the newspaper.



A new report found that former President Donald Trump's border wall was breached thousands of times with

The incidents cited by the Post referred to cases where the wall had been cut. But it was also breached in other ways. One report last year found some smugglers were building effective ladders with about $5 worth of material. In another famous case from 2020, a stiff wind knocked over a segment.

Trump repeatedly promised to build a “big beautiful wall” across the southern border that Mexico would pay for.

Mexico did not pay for it. U.S. taxpayers did.

President Joe Biden has since suspended wall construction and said he would be returning the $2 billion Trump diverted from the Pentagon budget for the project.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Governor Lee's partnership with Hillsdale College is ultimately propaganda | Opinion


Bill Lee   Governor of Tennessee

Adrienne Hinds
Thu, March 3, 2022, 5:02 AM·2 min read


Governor Bill Lee wishes to “teach” US civics to Tennessee children as unapologetic exceptionalism.

We hear the word indoctrination incessantly. There appears, however to be a lack of understanding specifically in the context of the classroom. The action of indoctrination is to teach a group of people to accept, uncritically, a set of predetermined beliefs.

And while teaching is the means of indoctrination, the presentation in the classroom of facts, with discussions, activities and presentations to aid in the understanding of United States history and civics is not indoctrination, the criminalization of any discussions, presentations or activities believed counter to the narrative of American exceptionalism, most certainly is.

Governor Lee has turned over the civics education of our children, the future citizens of Tennessee, to an outside supplier, which uses propaganda, to promote their specific point of view. This opinionated perspective will be disseminated to our public schools by Hillsdale College, a Baptist institution, based in Michigan.

I am at a loss of how Lee’s rhetoric surrounding choice, freedom and parental control manifests as our State government mandating the use of a civics curriculum developed by a random Michigan based, Baptist College. There is dissonance.

To be clear, I am proud to be an American, and maybe a little less proud to be a Tennessean over these last few years. Yet after living with and fighting the challenges that do exist, I understand and know that allowing students the freedom to develop and practice the skills to perform their own fact based critique of a system, does not and will not diminish or damage that system, that student, or that child.

I know and understand that critique, assessment and discourse lead to betterment, change and improvement. It is only when a system is perceived as weak or fragile by those in power, that those in power act “to stack the deck,” to eliminate freedom, silence discourse and demand obedience to control a population and ensure the desired outcome.

Exceptionalism does not equate to perfection and it never has. Even the exceptional among us know there is always room for growth and improvement. Ignoring identified flaws as if they do not exists do not make them disappear.

It is time for Governor Lee to set the example and put his trust in the people who put him in office. We are Tennesseans. We are exceptional.

Adrienne Hinds is currently the Program Director for Business and Economics at Columbia State and the former data governance consulting with the TN Department of Education.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Hillsdale College partnership will indoctrinate propaganda in TN schools

Under pressure from lunatics, Kansas Gov. Kelly’s administration pulls PSAs on vaccine


 Republican state Sen. Mark Steffen 

John Hanna/Associated Press file photo

The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
Thu, March 3, 2022, 4:00 AM·4 min read


It is a sad day in Kansas when Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration doesn’t even dare to stand up for lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines.

And as we now know, that day came last month.

That’s when, under pressure from lunatics in the Legislature, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment stopped airing most of its public service announcements encouraging vaccination.

We only know this because during a Wednesday confirmation hearing for acting KDHE Secretary Janet Stanek, Republican state Sen. Mark Steffen asked Stanek how the department had responded to his concerns that the department was promoting messages that — oh no! — portrayed COVID vaccines as safe and effective.

“What have we done since we saw you last about correcting that lack of a balanced approach to true and informed consent?” he wanted to know.

Stanek answered, “One thing we’ve done is revisited the ads which were brought up by many of you and we have removed the TV ads.”

A spokesman later said that pressure from those who will vote on whether or not to confirm Stanek had nothing to do with this decision, but as one Democratic lawmaker put it: “Seriously, we’re caving to this? But I have wondered, how are we getting anyone through this committee otherwise?”

Turns out, even caving won’t necessarily get her confirmed.

And even if that weren’t the case, Kelly would still have been wrong to give in and give up. If even public service announcements are “tyranny” now, where does this end?

And how can Republicans continue to let the most extreme among them get their way again and again?

State Sen. Mike Thompson, who serves on the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, suggested at the earlier hearing, in January, that any messages about vaccines should include a disclaimer, just as cigarette packs do, warning about all the deaths linked to vaccines. “What I’m getting at here is that the perception is the vaccines are safe and effective,” he said then. “Most people believe these things are safe and in fact we know people are getting COVID. We know people are actually dying from these shots.”

Only, they aren’t. The state was pitching COVID vaccines as safe and effective because they are safe and effective.

Of more than 553 million doses administered in the U.S., the CDC had as of Feb. 22 confirmed a causal link between nine deaths and any COVID vaccine. All of those were linked to the J&J vaccine, and all had resulted from severe blood clots known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS. Nearly a million people in the U.S. — 953,000 — have died of COVID-19. And just under 2,000 people are still dying of it every day in our country — 1,933 on March 1, with a seven-day average of 1,915.

But there has been an enormous amount of misinformation and, unfortunately, flat-out disinformation about the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which compiles unconfirmed reports of any bad reaction following any vaccination. It does not distinguish between reactions that were and were not caused by the vaccination.

An example that VAERS itself gives is that if an elderly nursing home patient died from an unrelated illness months after receiving a COVID vaccine, that would still be reported as a death following vaccination.

The tally of deaths from COVID, on the other hand, only count those for whom COVID was the cause of death.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Stanek was asked what she thought about mandates, and the COVID-related closing of churches, and what she would have done had she been running the department earlier in the pandemic.

It’s not clear that a majority on the public health committee believe in public health measures, or even in the concept of public health.

On Thursday, Thompson argued that the committee should kill Stanek’s chances outright. “I just feel very uncomfortable and very unwilling to just accept someone who blindly accepts CDC guidelines,” he said. Thompson again repeated a bunch of misinformation, including that the vaccines were rushed and that people are dying from them.

He said he’d just gotten an email from someone whose 23-year-old son had died from the vaccine, and knew someone having a heart attack who had died waiting to be let inside a hospital because they had required him to first be tested for COVID. (Note: By all means, Senator, fill us in on the details, because we’d love to break some international news.)

Oh, and the former weatherman said that the person Kansas really needs to hire instead of Stanek is someone like Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who claims it’s a “lie” that masks have saved lives, and that any doctor who says otherwise is a “zombie.”

In the end, the committee decided to let the Senate as a whole vote on Stanek’s nomination, without making any recommendation one way or the other. It’s still not clear she’ll survive the up-or-down vote.

But it was always guaranteed that caving to lunatics would only lead to more lunacy.

If Kelly really wants to lead Kansas for the next four years, maybe she should start now.

Kansas pulls COVID vaccine ads from TV after lawmakers object to calling them safe and effective

Jason Tidd, Topeka Capital-Journal
Thu, March 3, 2022

The Kansas health agency stopped airing television advertisements promoting the COVID-19 vaccine after some Republican lawmakers took issue with calling the shots safe and effective.

The revelation came during Janet Stanek's confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee. Stanek is the acting secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The same committee pressed Stanek on COVID-19 conspiracy theories at a January meeting. Some members contended the KDHE should be more careful about labeling COVID-19 vaccines as safe and effective.

Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, again raised the issue Wednesday.

"When it comes to the COVID shot ... we talked about the problem that KDHE was basically saying 'safe and effective, safe and effective, safe and effective' when we have a CDC VAERS reporting system that ties 20,000-plus deaths, and more complications, to these shots than all the other vaccines combined," he said. "What have you done since we saw you last in regards to correcting that lack of a balanced approach to obtain true informed consent?"

Janet Stanek, acting secretary of the Kansas Depatment of Health and Environment, answers questions during a confirmation hearing Wednesday morning.

Stanek said health officials were obtaining informed consent for vaccination.

"One thing we've done is revisited the ads, which were brought up by many of you, and we have removed the TV ads," Stanek said. "We are making sure that in reviewing all of our ads that if we do have an advertisement or something that might mention getting the vaccine, that there is a link, and we are encouraging people to follow up with their doctor."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. The vaccines do carry a risk of such common side effects as muscle pain.

Serious safety problems are rare, according to the CDC. Anaphylaxis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, myocarditis and pericarditis, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome are the four serious adverse events with evidence suggesting a link to vaccines.

"Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem," the CDC states.

Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, waits to question KDHE acting secretary Janet Stanek during a confirmation hearing Wednesday morning.

An autopsy found that a Topeka-area woman died last year of "anaphylaxis due to COVID-19 vaccination."

"The decision to stop the vaccine advertising, both digital and television, was made as daily cases were falling and we began to look at transitioning to steady state as it relates to COVID," KDHE spokesperson Matt Lara said in an email. "We stopped the advertising to allow us time to review what our next steps are and what messaging we still need to push out."

The health department continues to promote vaccination clinics statewide.

"Vaccines remain the best tool to protect people from COVID-19, slow transmission, and reduce the likelihood of new variants emerging," the agency said in a Wednesday news release.

Gov. Laura Kelly appointed Stanek to lead the state's health agency in November after ousting Lee Norman. She took over in their early days of the omicron surge.

"We've talked about educating citizens on early treatment of COVID," said Steffen, who has promoted the unproven off-label drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. "You've been in this interim position while cases skyrocketed. Did you do anything to help people understand what their early treatment options were ... any educating, any public service announcements in regards to early treatments?"

"No PSAs," Stanek said. "Only reference to CDC and AMA and other guidance about where they can learn more about those early treatments."

Steffen has taken issue with "federal government agencies making all our decisions for us." He contended that public health puts "the greater good over the individual" rights.

"Are you comfortable with the concept that individuals have to be sacrificed for the well-being of society?" he said. "Like pushing vaccines so hard. You knew people were going to be injured, you knew people were being injured, and yet we didn't hear anything about that."

Stanek said people should talk to their doctors and read CDC publications.

In January, Steffen called the KDHE vaccine ads morally and legally objectionable.

Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, said the ads should have disclaimers about risks of adverse reactions.

"There's no effort by your agency to at least put a seed of doubt in people's mind," Thompson said, adding, "The perception is the vaccines are safe and effective," and he has "done a lot of research on this."

Jason Tidd is a statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jtidd@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Tidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: KDHE pulls Kansas TV ads calling COVID vaccines safe and effective