Coronavirus, Health

2 New Studies Test Quercetin and COVID-19 Outcomes

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The Epoch Times  10/22/2021

Studies suggest this antiviral, anti-blood clotting, anti-inflammatory is an effective therapeutic

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, good doctors have done what good doctors do and have given their patients safe and effective therapeutics to treat COVID-19.

While public health officials said nothing could be done, many doctors applied lessons learned from previous viral infections and helped their patients support their immune systems with safe measures that have a known history.

Common measures suggested by those doctors have included the use of vitamin D and antioxidants. As the pandemic wears on, mounting evidence points to the efficacy of many of these treatments, including quercetin.

Quercetin is a plant flavonol, a potent antioxidant found in many fruits, vegetables, seeds, and leaves. It’s safe, inexpensive, easy to obtain, and can help zinc get inside your cells, where it can work to stop viral replication.

Statistical Improvement in Clinical Outcomes

Two recent studies highlight the potential this safe plant-derived antioxidant has to treat COVID-19.

In the first study, published in the International Journal of General Medicine, 42 COVID-19 outpatients were divided into two groups. One group of 21 patients received standard medical therapy consisting of painkillers (acetaminophen) and an antibiotic for three consecutive days. The other 21 patients received standard therapy, plus the equivalent of 600 mg of quercetin per day (divided into three doses) for seven days, followed by another seven-day course of 400 mg of quercetin per day (divided into two doses).

The quercetin was used with sunflower lecithin, which has been demonstrated to increase absorption in the gut by as much as 20 times, compared to pure quercetin formulations.

The main outcomes being evaluated were virus clearance and symptoms. After one week of treatment, 16 of the 21 patients in the quercetin group tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 and 12 reported that all of their symptoms had diminished.

In the standard care group, only two patients tested negative and four reported partially improved symptoms. By the end of week two, the five remaining patients in the quercetin group tested negative. In the standard care group, 17 of the 19 remaining patients tested negative and one had died.

“These results are impressive, and hopefully additional studies will be conducted on hospitalized patients to see how quercetin might be helpful in more severe cases,” Dr. Michael Murray wrote in an Aug. 21 newsletter.

Can Quercetin Reduce Hospitalizations and Deaths?

The second study—a prospective, randomized, and controlled open-label trial—gave 152 COVID-19 outpatients a daily dose of 1,000 mg of quercetin for 30 days to evaluate its adjuvant effects in the treatment of early COVID-19 symptoms and the prevention of severe infection.

“The results revealed a reduction in frequency and length of hospitalization, in need of non-invasive oxygen therapy, in progression to intensive care units and in a number of deaths,” the study authors wrote.

“The results also confirmed the very high safety profile of quercetin and suggested possible anti-fatigue and pro-appetite properties.”

They described the branded form of quercetin being tested (Quercetin Phytosome) as “a safe agent and in combination with standard care, when used in early stage of viral infection,” saying that it could improve early symptoms and prevent severe COVID-19.

Mechanisms of Action

The authors of the first study wrote that they chose quercetin because it has antiviral, anti-blood clotting, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties, all of which are important in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. In the second study, more detailed mechanisms of action are reviewed.

The authors looked at specific enzymes with the help of molecular docking studies, gaining insight into the intricate biochemistry at play.

“Quercetin is characterized by three crucial properties: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory. The combination of these actions allows quercetin to be a potential candidate to support all unhealthy conditions where oxidative stress, inflammation and immunity are involved,” they wrote.

Initially, quercetin gained attention because it’s a zinc ionophore, meaning it shuttles zinc—which has well-known antiviral effects—into your cells just like the drug hydroxychloroquine.

Some proposed that the primary reason hydroxychloroquine and quercetin worked was because of this feature. Of course, you also had to take zinc along with either of them. To effectively act as a zinc ionophore, quercetin also needs vitamin C.

Since then, other studies, including the two reviewed in this article, have shown that quercetin has other actions that make it useful against SARS-CoV-2 as well. As reported by Murray in his newsletter:

“In particular, quercetin exerts significant inhibition on the binding of specific spike proteins to ACE-2 receptors, thereby blocking the ability of the virus to infect human cells. Quercetin has also been shown to directly neutralize viral proteins that are critical in the replication of SARS-CoV-2.”

In some studies, quercetin has also been shown to inhibit the release of inflammatory cytokines, signaling molecules that summon immune cells to fight off invaders. Unfortunately, in COVID-19, too many cytokines send up a signal and the immune response turns deadly. Dampening the cytokine signal could help alleviate infection-related symptoms and suppress excessive inflammatory responses from occurring. Quercetin’s antioxidant effects may also help prevent tissue damage caused by scavenging free radicals, thereby aiding in the recovery process of viral infections.

Quercetin’s Antiviral Properties

Quercetin’s antiviral properties have been attributed to three main mechanisms of action: inhibiting the virus’ ability to infect cells; inhibiting replication of already infected cells; and reducing infected cells’ resistance to treatment with antiviral medication.

Research on mice funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and published in 2008 found that quercetin lowers your risk of viral illnesses such as influenza and boosts mental performance following extreme physical stress, which might otherwise undermine your immune function and render you more susceptible to infections.

Another study looked at cyclists who received a daily dose of 1,000 mg of quercetin in combination with vitamin C (which enhances plasma quercetin levels) and the B vitamin niacin (to improve absorption) for five weeks. Those in the treatment group were significantly less likely to contract a viral illness after bicycling three hours per day for three consecutive days, compared to untreated controls. While 45 percent of the placebo group eventually got sick, that number was at just 5 percent of the treatment group.

Quercetin Works Against Many Common Viruses

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, several studies had highlighted quercetin’s ability to prevent and treat the common cold (which is often caused by a coronavirus) and seasonal influenza. By attenuating oxidative damage, quercetin also lowers your risk of secondary bacterial infections, which is actually the primary cause of influenza-related deaths.

Importantly, quercetin increases the growth in size and number of mitochondria (the powerhouse of a cell) in skeletal muscle, which suggests part of its antiviral effects are due to enhanced mitochondrial antiviral signaling. Quercetin has also been found to work against other viruses as well.

A 1985 study found that quercetin inhibits the infectivity and replication of herpes simplex virus type 1, polio-virus type 1, parainfluenza virus type 3, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

A 2016 animal study found that quercetin inhibited mouse dengue virus and the hepatitis virus.

Other studies have confirmed quercetin’s power to inhibit both hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections.

A March 2020 study found that quercetin provides “comprehensive protection” against Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. As reported by the authors of this study: “Our results indicated that quercetin may be a novel potential drug candidate for the treatment of clinical pneumococcal infections.”

How Quercetin Combats Inflammation and Boosts Immunity

Aside from its antiviral activity, quercetin is also known for boosting immunity and combating inflammation. A 2016 study in the journal Nutrients describes the mechanisms of action, which included inhibiting a cytokine involved in systemic inflammation, dampening the production of inflammation-producing enzymes, and curbing other inflammatory agents.

According to the study, quercetin also stabilizes mast cells, has cytoprotective activity in the gastrointestinal tract, and has “a direct regulatory effect on basic functional properties of immune cells,” which allows it to inhibit “many inflammatory pathways and functions.”

Bioavailability

While quercetin does have potent antiviral effects, in order for it to work effectively, you need sufficiently high dosages to raise the level of quercetin in your body’s tissues. The relatively low absorption rate of quercetin is why a sunflower lecithin formulation was used.

Research published in the July–December issue of the Journal of Natural Health Products Research, found that a quercetin matrix has the same total absorption rate as quercetin phytosome—and higher peak blood levels.

“Since both of these forms of quercetin produce similar blood levels, they should produce the same effects at equal dosages based upon quercetin content,” Murray wrote in his newsletter.

“My dosage recommendation as part of a nutritional supplement program to support immune function is 250 mg twice daily.

“And in patients with active infection, my recommendation is … six capsules twice a day providing a total of 3,000 mg of quercetin. This high dosage should be taken for at least 10 days and then reduced to a maintenance dosage of 250 mg twice daily.

“[This] high dosage may not be necessary. But my dosage calculations are based upon likely tissue concentrations needed to exert the strongest antiviral effects. And given the safety of quercetin, there is no harm at this level.”

Protocol Using Quercetin

One doctor who brought quercetin into the limelight early was Dr. Vladimir Zelenko. As hydroxychloroquine became difficult to obtain, Zelenko switched to recommending quercetin instead, as it’s readily available as an over-the-counter supplement. For a downloadable “cheat sheet” of Zelenko’s protocol for COVID-19, visit VladimirZelenkoMD.com.

Joseph Mercola

Joseph Mercola
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com. An osteopathic physician, best-selling author, and recipient of multiple awards in the field of natural health, his primary vision is to change the modern health paradigm by providing people with a valuable resource to help them take control of their health. This article was originally published on Mercola.com

https://www.theepochtimes.com/2-new-studies-test-quercetin-and-covid-19-outcomes_4051356.html

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Coronavirus, Deep State, Democrat Party, Losing Freedom, Vaccine

Colin Powell’s Death the Latest Sign of the COVID Scam

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By Michael Walsh  10/20/2021

Colin Powell, a good man and a great American, has died. He had been suffering for years from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, as well as Parkinson’s disease, but according to the media (citing his family), the real cause of death was “complications” from—you guessed it—COVID-19, despite the fact that he was “fully vaccinated” and indeed was about to get a booster shot when his compromised immune system finally failed.

There will be accolades aplenty forthcoming for General Powell, a former secretary of state, who ably served both presidents Bush in various military and civilian capacities. But his death, coming as it does in the midst of our long political and biomedical wrangle over the severity of the threat posed by the CCP virus that causes COVID-19, once again focuses attention on the social and economic destruction the panic over the pandemic continues to cause.

Indeed, the general’s death “from” COVID—despite his vaccination status—indicates one thing very plainly: the vaccines don’t work. If they did, if they really prevented anyone from contracting the disease, Powell might still be alive while his doctors battled his other ailments. But they don’t, he didn’t, and it’s high time everyone admitted it.

Don’t wait for the media, those thoroughly corrupt handmaidens of the Democrat Party and, latterly, of the U.S. government, to admit that. Indeed, just hours after Powell’s death, various outlets hastily rushed onto the air and into print with assurances that just because the vaccines don’t work doesn’t mean they don’t work.

 

USA Today: “Colin Powell’s death the exception among vaccinated, not proof inoculations don’t work.”

CNN: “Why vaccinated people dying from COVID-19 doesn’t mean the vaccines are ineffective.”

WUSA9: “Gen. Colin Powell’s death does not prove COVID vaccines don’t work.”

Media Campaign

Who are you going to believe—the media or your lying eyes and your gift of reason? For nearly 18 months we have been subject to an increasingly manic media campaign, at the behest of political operatives, to convince the world that the still-experimental vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna—which are more akin to gene therapy than conventional vaccines—and the more conventional one from Johnson & Johnson, are the key to stopping COVID.

That they vastly increase the revenues and balance sheets of the pharmaceutical companies as well as aiding and abetting the government’s appropriation of unconstitutional powers has nothing to do with the official enthusiasm for them, of course.

The media’s been parroting the party line practically since the outbreak of COVID, from “two weeks to slow the spread” and “fifteen days to flatten the curve” to “social distancing of six feet,” and “wash your hands ten times a day,” and “wear a mask,” and “don’t overwhelm the hospitals,” and “get your shot,” then “get your second shot,” then “get a booster shot,” and now “it doesn’t matter which shots you get, just keep getting shots until Joe Biden tells you to stop.”

If a vaccine that was touted as nearly 100 percent effective when it was first introduced now needs a series of booster shots ad infinitum for it to have the remotest effect, what does that tell you?

Ask Washington. The government has been pushing the panic button from the jump—another of Donald Trump’s many and manifest personnel misjudgments was giving Dr. Anthony Fauci a national platform and thus elevating the nation’s neurotic obsession with “health” into national policy—demanding unconstitutional lockdowns, quarantines, travel restrictions, mandatory vaccines, vaccine “passports” and other naked displays of power-grabbing, all meant to punish the innocent. And for what?

In the process, Fauci, a career “civil servant” and superannuated bureaucrat who has seized the reins of power and continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth because it’s clear he has no idea what he’s talking about, no longer cares whether what he says makes any sense. He should have been forcibly retired—fired—long ago, but his usefulness to the forces behind Biden’s throne ensures they’ll keep trotting him out no matter how wrong he proves to be.

Gaslighting

The real question is why? Why this hysterical insistence keeping COVID in the headlines, day after day, inflating the threat of a relatively minor respiratory illness with a 98+ percent survival rate into the second coming of the Black Plague? Why the constant moving of the goal posts from deaths to “cases”?

Why the various “road maps” out of COVID lockdowns that were unnecessary in the first place? Why the press-gang enlistment of the media to keep the public in line with increasingly implausible claims about an illness that, left to its own devices, would have vanished into the woodwork long ago?

The unspoken, false premise, which has by now been thoroughly inculcated in our population, is that absent the Dreaded COVID, we would all live forever. And that the unvaccinated, by radiating death spores at their vaccinated neighbors, are tantamount to murderers, even though the “nearly 100 percent effective” vaccines are supposed to prevent exactly that.

After all, via the political-medical machinations of our betters, we have stopped caring about heart disease, strokes, cancer, and even the common cold—hey, even the flu has disappeared! We’ve also stopped caring about Thanksgiving and Christmas, our kids’ childhoods, classroom instruction, civic virtue, national history, verities like sex differences, full employment, the movies, most sports, religious worship and just about everything else that used to make America, America.

In their place we now have armed police clobbering protestors when they’re not actually being fired or defunded, cities burning over the deaths of petty criminals in police custody, statues toppling, and the collapse of public order as crime has been effectively decriminalized in the name of racial “justice.”

Meanwhile, with a populace confined to quarters, unregulated tech giants like Twitter, Google, and Facebook run rampant, stifling speech, hijacking personal information to sell to the highest bidder, de-platforming ideological opponents (even while maintaining possession of their personal information), and pushing disinformation such as the Russian “collusion” farce… and now COVID.

Why are they so desperate? Why are they gaslighting us with tales of implacable viral bogeymen? What is it that they aren’t telling us?

It might be something, it might be nothing. I suspect it’s this: They like it.

Without the phantom menace of COVID, they could never have changed election laws, mandated arbitrary and capricious punishment of their enemies, destroyed the Trump administration, wrecked the economy, harmed our national defense, crippled our police department, suborned our legal system, destroyed childhood, instilled fear and obedience, encouraged neighbors to rat each other out, scapegoated those they despise, eliminated the southern border, and moved the nation steadily away from sovereignty and toward the New World Order of the Great Reset, whose motto is: you’ll own nothing and you’ll like it.

How do you like that? And what are you going to do about it?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

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Democrat Party, Immigration

Ted Cruz Introduces Legislation To Send Illegal Immigrants To Martha’s Vineyard, Other ‘Democrat-Led Communities’

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Ted Cruz Introduces Legislation To Send Illegal Immigrants To Martha’s Vineyard, Other ‘Democrat-Led Communities’

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced legislation Tuesday that would bring processing centers for illegal immigrants to places such as Martha’s Vineyard and other Democrat-led communities amid the ongoing border crisis.

“For the past ten months, President Biden and his administration have willingly surrendered the United States’ southern border to dangerous criminal cartels, with no thought given to the South Texas border communities like McAllen and Del Rio, which are running low on resources from dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants,” Cruz said in a statement before introducing the legislation.

“That’s why today I am introducing this crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties,” Cruz added.

The legislation would establish new ports of entry in 13 communities across the U.S. and mandate that all illegal immigrants caught at Border Patrol Sectors in Texas be transferred to one of the 13 new ports for processing.

The 13 New Ports Would Be In The Following Locations: 

  1. Block Island, RI
  2. Greenwich, CT
  3. Martha’s Vineyard, MA
  4. Cambridge, MA
  5. Governors Island, NY
  6. Rehoboth Beach, DE
  7. Nantucket, MA
  8. Newport, RI
  9. Scarsdale, NY
  10. Palo Alto, CA
  11. Yountville, CA
  12. St. Helena, CA
  13. North Hero, VT

“Local Border Patrol Sectors in Texas continue to be overwhelmed by the volume of illegal aliens at the border. The Texas government has been forced to declare a state of disaster and provide its law enforcement and fiscal resources to address the crisis,” Cruz wrote in a press release.

Cruz visited the border in March and said that he encountered human traffickers and cartel members. “That’s Mexico and you can see there are three smugglers right there standing on the Mexican side looking at us,” he said in one of his videos.

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American Thought, Republican(s), The Right, Trump

Can the GOP survive Trump’s never-ending obsession with himself?

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Someone recommended this blog post to me. I think Mr Goldberg’s analysis is pretty good. I will quibble on a few points (see below). mrossol

By Jonah Goldberg,  October 15, 2021
Jonah Goldberg
       
   

(Photograph by Scott Olson/Getty Images.)

Dear Reader (including whoever put the lime in the coconut and shook it all up),

As Jerome Powell whispered, don’t worry, baby, this will be transitory.

What I mean is that this Friday “news”letter marks the end of third party week. And I’m really not going to jump back into the weeds on that subject anyway. (By the way, I’ve opened up the Wednesday G-File to the masses in case you want to get in on the action.)  

I don’t really mind people thinking I’m wrong about the tactical and strategic stuff. One of the ways you figure out what’s right is by kicking the tires on what’s wrong. I don’t mind people thinking I’m wrong about the philosophical stuff, either. I’m just more willing to stand my ground on principles than I am on prudential questions like, “Will it work?” If it wouldn’t work, why would I want to do it in the first place? (Great line.. mrossol)

Think of it this way: Say my kid is suddenly really ill and I think it’s appendicitis. I say to the E.R. doctor, “You gotta operate right now!” If the doctor responds, “Um, it’s food poisoning. You don’t cut people open for that,” I’m not going to get all huffy and insist he bust out the scalpel, because doctors know more about the icky stuff inside of people than I do. But if the doctor says, “Let her suffer. Suffering is good for the soul. Besides, it’s my lunch break.” Well—as I’d probably have to explain to the cops and maybe the jury—I’m going to have a more forceful response.

In other words, if you disagree with me about my proposed solution to the problem, that’s cool; let’s talk it through. But if you disagree with me on whether or not there is a problem in the first place, we’re gonna have a very different conversation.  Agree- mrossol.

So here’s the funny thing: Nobody wants to have that conversation (although I’m sure some MAGA types are going full Gorka on me—never go full Gorka). But among people worth listening to, there’s a lot of agreement on the diagnosis and a lot of disagreement on the treatment. I particularly like the rich cocktail of stoicism, cynicism, and hopefulness in Erick Erickson’s take. It’s like getting a motivational greeting card from Werner Herzog. He writes:

It’s all gross and unseemly, but I think what is happening now is a passing fad. A large group of people came into politics inspired by Trump. They don’t really know what they’re doing in politics or how it all works. Now the billionaires who want in on the action are throwing money around and they’re getting played by the grifters and bled dry. The island of misfit toys is trying to lead them all. The professional establishment operators are experts at playing all sides and the odds are in their favor. They’re not conservatives. But they aren’t really crazy either.

But note that the Calvin Coolidge-esque resignation about the problem isn’t a denial of the problem’s existence. Remember one of my favorite quotes from Coolidge: “If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.” Erick’s position seems to be that the problem I identify is likely to be one of the nine that goes into a ditch on its own.  I agree – mrossol.

I sincerely hope he’s right. But I still disagree with Eric on a few things. For instance, I’m still not fully convinced my idea wouldn’t work. I worry more about the role of small donors than I do about the really big ones. J.D. Vance may be attached to Peter Thiel like a sucker fish, but unless the fat cats are laundering money through a bunch of dummy accounts, buffoons like Marjorie Taylor Greene and political appetites in a skin suit (looking at you, Josh Hawley) are raising a ton of money through small donations.

Donald Trump, third party of one.

But you know what does give me hope? Donald Trump. The other day, he issued a fantastic statement:

If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ‘22 or ‘24. It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.

I love this statement so much it makes me want to take off my wedding ring, suck in my stomach, and ask it to go to Bermuda with me. Ha! mrossol.

All week I’ve been hearing from people—smart people, dumb people, sincere people, performative Twitter jackass people—that it’s bad, wrong, traitorous, stupid, misguided, or insane for me to actively try to hurt the GOP because of my personal obsessions. “Don’t you understand,” friends and foes alike ask, “that you’ll single-handedly give total power to the Democrats and they’ll print a whole roll of trillion-dollar coins, invoke prima nocta in red states, mandate that face masks be surgically sewn into our faces (causing the starvation of millions), make skim almond milk the only legal form of dairy, and give nuclear weapons to the Taliban? Is that what you want you RINO cuck TDS-besotted jackass? Is it?”  I don’t think this is what Goldberg is doing. mrossol

Okay, I’m paraphrasing and exaggerating just a bit for effect, but you get the point. In all of this, I’m the one who needs to compromise with the “freedom flu” crowd for the greater good; I’m the one who needs to stop relitigating the past; I’m the one putting my concerns ahead of the real issues that affect real Americans; I’m the one who needs to be a sober-eyed grown-up about politics.

And then in comes Trump, making waves like a stumbling drunk who didn’t see the hot tub until too late, literally saying that Democrats should win every election uncontested unless everyone “solves” the object of his batshit bullshittery. The single most important thing for Republicans to address isn’t critical race theory, vaccine mandates, the border, the supply chain cock-up, inflation, or anything having to do with foreign policy. It’s their commitment to a claim that was shot down by every court that looked at it, not to mention Trump’s own attorney general(s).  So I agree that what the Republican’s single most important issues are NOT.  But what I disagree with is that Goldberg (and others like him) seem to suggest, if not outright saying it, is that the election(s) of 2020 were 100% legitimate, honest, and that there is nothing “wrong” with process.  They are willing to believe something that is very, very unlikely.  mrossol

At least my solutions are aimed at the future and grounded in real policy stuff. I’m trying to figure out how to make the GOP better, more successful, and conservative in the long run. Meanwhile, Trump’s stolen election fantasy is simply and entirely about his own selfish id, his unrestrained narcissism, and his complete lack of concern with anything approaching real issues. He might as well be venting about how the time travel in Back to the Future really didn’t make much sense, given how little this stolen election nonsense has to do with not only reality, but stuff that might be helpful for the GOP. In other words, my alleged “Trump obsession” isn’t the issue or even a problem. But Trump’s very real and deranged Trump obsession is.

It already cost the GOP control of the Senate by losing Georgia. Now Trump proposes losing the whole country if his ego isn’t stroked. But damn you, Goldberg, be a team player!

By the way, what in the name of Thor does Trump mean by “solve” anyway? Does it mean “make him president again before the midterms”? Does it mean a do-over of the election? Does it mean a 500-foot-tall carnivorous purple bunny that craps cold fusion reactors that smell like chocolate?  Because that makes as much sense.

Look, even if a joint investigation of the Claremont Review of Books, Gateway Pundit, One America News, and the MyPillow coupon sampler could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was “stolen,” you know what happens next under the Constitution? Nothing. Biden would still be president. Unless of course you think that such fraud should be punished by impeachment and removal. Fair enough. Have fun getting those 67 votes in the Senate. But let’s say you do. Know what happens then? Kamala Harris becomes president. Well, she was obviously in on it, too, so she has to go. Okay, then Nancy Pelosi becomes president. Maybe you should stop there, because next in line is Pat Leahy. And after that, John frick’n Kerry. But you know who isn’t on even the extended list of those next in line to become president? Donald Trump. (It’s amazing how many people who have “constitutional conservative” in their Twitter bio don’t understand this.) Agree. Not sure there is a “solve”. mrossol

In other words, who needs a third party to punish the GOP when you have Donald Trump running around punching every team player in the groin with a spikey iron gauntlet? Charlie Cooke and my other friends at National Review who disagreed with my call for a third party are right that if the Sanity Caucus within conservatism cost the GOP control of Congress or the White House, they’d get blamed. And that would ultimately hurt the causes I care about. So just letting the cultists play out their auto-erotic masochism, as Erick suggests, makes sense.  

My only objection to this scenario is that it hasn’t worked. Trump cost the GOP Georgia’s two Senate seats. Trump lost the presidency and both houses of Congress. He swapped many of the most reliable and valuable voters in the GOP coalition for the least reliable and valuable ones.  Partially agree, mrossol.

(Before a bunch of eggheads who pretend to be the authentic voice of the working class when they’re not talking about post-liberal integralism get all worked up about this claim, let me make clear I’m not talking about the value of these groups as human beings, but as voters. College educated suburbanites turned out reliably for the GOP in places where their votes were decisive. Rural voters and voters without college degrees—many of whom are already in red states—turn out less and less reliably, particularly when Trump isn’t on the ticket.)

Anyway, sorry for the long parenthetical. Where were we? Oh, right: Trump has hurt the GOP and continues to hurt the GOP in tangible ways. Yet where are the grown-ups saying, “Okay, it’s time to learn our lesson”? Normally, the faction responsible for wrecking the party hands over the car keys to the faction that gets to say, “I told you so.” Some Republicans did say it, finally, after the January 6 riot.  Like the word “stolen” isn’t the right word to describe the 2020 election, “riot” is not the right word to use for January 6.  It validates all the lies that the left and Dems are leveling at citizens who think different then they. mrossol.

Such Republicans can be divided into two groups. Group A—the House and Senate members who voted for impeachment—is on defense. The House members are being purged. The senators are keeping a low profile. None of them have the whip hand in restoring the GOP to sanity. 

Group B? Well, that’s pretty much everyone else. Nearly all of them have backtracked or apologized in word or deed. Lindsey Graham said he was done with Trump nine months ago. Now he wants to draft Donald Trump for president. Heck, Trump unleashed a mob chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on a vice president who was so loyal for four years he made a Stepford wife look like a randy swinger. We use the term “lynch mob” figuratively a lot in politics. But Trump sicced a literal lynch mob on Pence. And now Pence is attacking [checks notes] the media for making such a big deal about all this.

So again, I’m hoping that Erick is right and this will all fix itself in due course. I’m just skeptical, because for five years I’ve been told, “This can’t last,” “The grown-ups will fix it,” “Trump wouldn’t dare,” “The rank-and-file GOP would never tolerate that,” and “You’re making way too big a deal about this stuff,” etc.  Agree. I don’t think this will fix itself. mrossol

All of those claims were wrong. And the wrongness only seems to be intensifying.

Canine update: Lots of people want to know about Pippa’s medical travails, so here’s the latest. One surgeon told us if her ankle got worse, she’d need surgery to pretty much fuse the joint. She’d still have a limp, but it wouldn’t be painful anymore. We decided it was time and brought her in for a consultation with a different surgeon (the first one is on leave). He’s skeptical that surgery is needed. This might be great news, or it might not. He thinks she might have Lyme disease or some other tick-borne illness, because she seems to have joint pain elsewhere as well. Maybe it’s all treatable with medicine and no surgery (which would be great). Or maybe it’s not (which would be terrible). We’re doing the tests, hemorrhaging the money, etc. We love the sweet, crazy girl. I promise to let you know the outcome.

Meanwhile, I’m on a plane to visit my daughter and I’m pretty giddy about it (the daughter-seeing, not the flying). The dogs are having a sleepover at “Aunt” Kirsten’s house. They love it there. Meanwhile, Gracie is staying home with a personal attendant who will also keep an eye on the house. I’ll be back on Tuesday, but the Fair Jessica will be on a business trip for a while (she’s an assassin), which means it’ll just be me and the quadrupeds for like 10 days.

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I'm serious… usually. (Martin Rossol)