Hey, Ukraine, Let’s You and Him Fight!

by Daniel Oliver for American Greatness 

The war in Ukraine grinds on. And as it does, both those supporting the war and those against it write pieces to try to make their case while never convincing the other side. 

Peter Wallison, a hero of the Reagan years for whom I have great respect, weighed in recently with a piece titled “Trump’s Ukraine Sellout.” Peter is a special friend. During the Reagan administration, we both survived attempts to defenestrate us. The bad guys lost, and we continued on, doing battle for the Gipper and the country. Peter went on to write the book on the banking collapse: Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again. Peter is brave and bright.

Nevertheless, I think he’s wrong on the Ukraine war.

Like many others in favor of supporting Ukraine ad infinitum, Wallison compares the situation in Ukraine to the prelude to World War II: the allies did not act as soon as they should have to stop Hitler. World War II ensued. Putin, in that argument, is Hitler.

But Putin is not Hitler. People are different. Putin may turn out to be as bad as Hitler, but we don’t know that. And because we don’t, we shouldn’t blindly act as we should have in the run-up to World War II.

It seems fair to say that many, maybe most, Europeans don’t see Putin as Hitler. How many NATO countries contribute their full dues? More have done so in past years (thanks largely to the urging of then President Trump), but eighteen countries still fall short of the alliance’s 2-percent-of-GDP requirement, including France (1.9 percent), Portugal (1.48 percent), and Italy (1.46 percent). Does anyone doubt that if the Europeans really thought Putin was Hitler and feared Russia’s winning this war—and then moving westward—they could provide the necessary support to Ukraine in a trice? Why should the U.S. care more about Putin than the Europeans do? The U.S. bailed out Europe in World War II as it had in World War I. Why should the U.S. spend its treasure to do so again?

Is Putin mad enough to try to grab parts of Eastern Europe? Anything could happen, of course; the world is full of surprises. But surely the West should be cautious about waging a massive war today to prevent the unknown possibilityof war tomorrow.

Surely there’s a difference between wanting to “recover” Ukraine and wanting to “recover,” say, Lithuania. Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe and is not part of NATO. Lithuania, about the size of West Virginia, has no special or unique characteristics that would make annexation valuable, but it is part of NATO.

Now many Republicans, if not yet the Republican Party as an organization, have serious reservations about supporting the endless war in Ukraine. For that, Wallison blames Trump. That’s too facile—however much pleasure it may give to blame Trump for everything, including Original Sin. It’s also worth noting, and perhaps reminding Wallison, that Putin didn’t invade Ukraine on Trump’s watch.

Wallison refers to polls that indicate the Ukraine war still has the support of many Americans. That’s true, but many Americans also oppose the war, and surely polls are not the only way, nor perhaps the best way, to decide whether to continue to support a war.

There are problems. One is President Biden—or perhaps, assuming he is no longer really the man in charge, his advisors, many of whom are Obama proteges. Biden had a chance before the war began to make it plain to Russia that the U.S. would provide massive aid to Ukraine if Putin invaded. He did not. So much for the Hitler analogy for this administration. Instead, Biden dithered and showed the same incompetence he displayed in the pull-out from Afghanistan. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that the Biden team is skilled enough to craft policies that will actually help the Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, Biden sticks his finger in the eyes of the Republicans (and a lot of former Democrats) by deliberately leaving our own southern border open to all and then denying any responsibility (who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?) for the ensuing tsunami of illegals crossing over that border—rendering hypocritical his insistence that borders are important.

In addition, the U.S. military has been atrophying. E.g., because of DEI, the army and the air force each fell about 10,000 recruits short of their goals in 2023, and the navy about 6,000 short. The navy is also short of submarines; older ones are being retired faster than new ones are being built. The Navy is seventeen nuclear subs short of Navy requirements, about thirty-three years behind schedule. And we are being urged to send more aid to Ukraine?

The U.S. is also, as has been well publicized, running short of ammunition because of supplying the Ukrainians. One of the arguments for supporting aid to Ukraine is that, actually, much of the money would be spent in the U.S. rebuilding our stockpiles of ammunition. But then why not simply pass a bill doing only that and leave out the other provisions that send aid to Ukraine?

And there are other problems, too, with the Ukrainians. Sources have told this column that corruption in the Ukrainian army is way, way up: theft, and then sale, of equipment is rife. Further aid is likely to suffer the same fate as previous aid.

But at this point, perhaps the most important aspect of the war to consider is the enormous death toll of Ukrainian soldiers. Rusty Reno, writing recently in First Things, raises the issue of how many Ukrainians we are prepared to have die in this war. Is there any number of Ukrainian deaths that would prompt an American enthusiast for the war to say, “Enough is enough?” The destruction of property in Ukraine has been huge and will take decades to replace. (Who will pay for that? Ask not to whom the bill goes …. ) But what about the people? Are we to encourage the Ukrainians to fight to the last man? Shades of “Let’s you and him fight?”

If you were Putin, what would you do? What you might do is keep fighting—not with the intention of winning yet, but only of killing as many able-bodied Ukrainian men as possible so that when you finally did win, there would be few men left to cause … problems.

And so the war grinds on.

X22, And we Know, and more - April 17

 

The Deep State’s Accelerating Attacks On Trump Show A Consciousness Of Guilt

posted by Ron Wright at American Thinker 

Joe Biden has proven to be a puppet of the Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian oligarchs—a true Manchurian Candidate. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s princeling, raked in millions of dollars at arm’s length from Uncle Joe for the Biden crime family from adversaries for no credible business reason. Why?

The purpose was to gain access to Joe Biden for favorable policy decisions and actions, i.e., going soft on China and Russia, releasing funds to the Iranian Mullahs whose proxies attack Israel, selective prosecution of political enemies, and allowing a two-tiered justice system.

It’s become clear in the past three years that a whole cadre of domestic and foreign adversaries all engaged in or aided and abetted in a coup to unseat a duly elected President and to prevent his reelection. The list includes the World Economic Forum (WEF); the globalists; the World Health Organization (WHO); the Marxist left; self-dealing and corrupt politicians, including President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama; the Deep State including the DOJ, FBI, CIA, DNI, DHS and others; the leftist media complex; big pharma; big tech; and multinational corporations.

Facts show that the Biden and Clinton families are criminal enterprises as defined in the RICO Act. The families conspired with others, both foreign adversaries and domestic operatives, for their personal gain or benefit to undermine and even sabotage the best interest of the American people and America’s national security interests, including using election fraud.

The DOJ, FBI, CIA, and others targeted Donald Trump, Hillary’s opponent in the 2016 election, by making up espionage claims to secure FISA surveillance warrants and then retargeting the espionage investigations to spy on Trump. This continued with the bogus Russian Collusion narrative. In 2020, they had the temerity to claim Hunter’s laptop was the product of Russian disinformation when they knew otherwise.

The FBI currently possesses a laptop that belonged to DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered in DC shortly before the 2016 election. The FBI has twice failed to comply with a federal court order to release the laptop’s information. Shades of Hunter’s laptop. What are they hiding now?

To cover for the Democrat collective’s illegal acts, the Biden administration, via the DOJ and FBI, is using lawfare, in the form of malicious and selective prosecution, and vexatious civil litigation to target Trump to make it impossible for him to be a viable in the 2024 election. The federal government has self-evidently coordinated closely with state prosecutors. These cases, in chief, lack merit and use convoluted stretches of the law.

The J6 “insurrection that wasn’t“ was a Democrat effort to entrap and delegitimize Trump and his supporters and to disqualify Trump’s candidacy. Evidence shows that then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, spearheaded the plan by limiting security at this significant political event and then leading the impeachment against Trump for leading and inciting an insurrection, which she followed with a show trial (the illegitimate J6 Special Committee).

That committee, without due process, referred Trump to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. Several states followed suit to remove Trump from the ballot based on the J6 Committee’s findings. The DOJ and several states then indicted Trump for bogus criminal actions, i.e., falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the claim that there was election fraud. Furthermore, questioning the results of an election is protected political free speech.

Because of the consequences if he’s found guilty, the most serious charge against Trump is that he violated national security by taking classified documents from the White House. In fact, there is no underlying crime in the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which the DOJ bootstrapped into a criminal charge of obstruction of justice.

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, in his latest filing, admits that the PRA does not apply. Instead, Smith is alleging Trump illegally possessed classified documents under the Espionage Act 18 USC § 793(e) when his term of office ended. The search warrant for Mar-a-Lago cites these crimes as the basis for the warrant: willful retention of national defense information, concealment or removal of government records, and obstruction of federal investigation. Smith goes to great lengths to say that Trump never declassified records using the methods described in these acts or EOs before he left office and, indeed, implies that Trump never declassified anything.

All these charges are ludicrous. The PRA, other acts, and Executive Orders such as EO 13526 are advisory to a sitting President. Presidents are free to act as they wish:

The sitting President is categorically exempt from these laws and administrative policies regarding classified documents, including nuclear, under the absolute or plenary powers of Article II of the US Constitution(See discussion Navy v. Eagan), including being barred from holding office as touted by the media.

In line with federal law, Kash Patel, a high-ranking official in the Trump Administration, said, “. . .Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves [My emphasis added].” See also this excellent summary by Kash Patel.

An important question is whether Jack Smith’s frantic press is about more than knocking Trump off the ballot. What if Trump were compiling documents while still in office that would prove the illegal actions in which the various Democrat enterprises (the DOJ, FBI, DNC, etc.) had engaged to unseat him as sitting President? Why would Trump follow the procedures for declassifying documents in these Acts or EOs when doing so would expose the hypothetical strategy to the conspirators? There is nothing like telegraphing your hand to your enemies.

Contrary to what Smith implied, one of Trump’s last acts as president, using a Presidential Memoranda he ordered published in the Congressional Record, was to declassify the binder containing information on the Russian Collusion narrative. The DOJ and FBI let the clock run out on Trump’s term, effectively violating his order. Trump also ordered the declassification of the transcript of the call with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Trump ordered the release of transcripts of notes of James Comey and surveillance information related to Carter Page to “show anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the FBI.”

My professional opinion as a criminal investigator is that Trump was investigating officials and agencies subordinate to him for potential illegal or seditious acts in order to hold the Administrative State accountable. The Democrats’ raid on Mar-a-Lago was to recover any copies of the Russian collusion binder or incriminating documents that Trump still possessed. Also, this raid was a warning to others who would seek to expose the government’s criminal activity by reminding them that the Administrative State can retaliate by using a flagrant and unaccountable abuse of power.

After the raid, the FBI didn’t disclose anything incriminating. Instead, it released photos staged for public consumption showing empty file folders spread on the floor with classified markings, along with carefully placed boxes. It’s entirely possible the FBI did not find what it was looking for.

If it’s ever released, the binder will expose the Democrats’ criminal activity. It’s likely to touch on every power player: President Biden and his operatives, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the FBI James Comey, the current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray, and others.

Our federal law enforcement and intel agencies—the DOJ, FBI, and CIA—have gone rogue. They are an American Stasi, flagrantly violating the People’s fundamental civil rights to support the administrative state. As Lt. Col. Grossman says in his analogy to sheepdogs who guard the flock from wolves, “Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours…”

Life Behind Communist Lines

posted by Kurt Schlichter at TownhallVIP 

When you live in a place like California or Northern Virginia or New York or some other blue hellhole, and you are in favor of things like America and freedom, you really are living in enemy territory. Democrats surround you like locust, except locust have a purpose, and you are constantly aware that you are a member of an oppressed minority. Of course, it’s the one allegedly oppressed minority that the damn commies don’t pretend to care about. Some of us own it, others don’t need the hassle. But for all of us refugees from freedom, it’s a pain to deal with an Immoral Majority.

You are always on alert, knowing that any interaction can turn into the climax of the 1970’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers should they discovery that you harbor unapproved views about the Constitution, the economy, and whether a chick can have a penis. You learn to navigate the perils of being a political/cultural outcast. You don’t run away from confrontations, but you don’t seek them out. After all, there’s nothing to be gained by them. Leftists are immune to reason. They are insusceptible to argument. They are in the grips of a ridiculous pagan religion and all its tenets – like that climate change is a thing and that structural racism is a thing and that Trump being a tool of Putin is a thing – are received wisdom. These people embrace it all not because they have been convinced of it but because they want to be part of the Bolshevik Borg. What greater show of solidarity could there be than to publicly announce that you accept something totally ridiculous, like that men can get pregnant? If you will show that you will eagerly sacrifice your self-respect and dignity for the cause, you prove yourself worthy of acceptance.

We refugees from America in the blue ruins are experts in commie dogma because we live in and around it. We hear the local frigid wine women talking about how Trump is awful in the aisles of the Trader Joe’s. We idle at stop lights behind hipster femboys in their Priuses with “COEXIST” bumper stickers – knowing that there should be an asterisk that reads “Except conservatives.” We see the hobos that their politics empower defiling our sidewalks.

We are surrounded, but we aren’t fooled. We know the enemy and understand xim. Of course, the enemy has zero understanding of us since they don’t know any of us. They think MSNBCNN is a documentary. They are blue bubble people.

I recently acquired a place in Texas – no, I’m not leaving California completely, as this is a state designed to enrich lawyers at the expense of normal people so I might as well cash in off these goofs and their idiotic laws. Texas is different because, in most areas, you can pretty much assume the person you are meeting is not some sort of communist dillweed. Conservatives abound and run free, celebrating the freedom and the BBQ.

But in Los Angeles, you have to scope out people you encounter to get a sense of where they stand. While maybe 25% of Californians might be reasonably classified as “Not Communist Dummies,” there are 33 million Californians. That means, in absolute numbers, there are a lot of patriots, even in the coastal enclaves where I spend my time. Of course, those are getting fewer and fewer. Fifteen years ago, when Andrew Breitbart was the head of a vibrant LA open conservative subculture, there were lots of conservative gatherings and events. There were a lot of us. But now, most of the open cons have left. Now, the kind of conservatives we usually encounter are normal people, not activists. They are also mostly undercover. Most of them see no upside in parading the fact they are not communists to strangers. Some, are into the confrontation. We met a nice man at one of our favorite breakfast joints with a MAGA hat. He was definitely looking for a fight, but the local libs were freaked out and made sure not to make any sudden moves around him.

Most normal people are on the conservative down low, so you look for indicators when meeting someone new. The lack of those “In This House, No One Is Illegal” signs is a good omen, but a proudly flying Stars and Stripes is a better one. A military hat or shirt is a positive indicator. So is a real job. With the HR directors, public school teachers, and (for the most part) lawyers, you can be relatively certain you’re dealing with a pinko. But someone who works for a living is likely to be one of us. Contractors, truck drivers, and business owners are likely allies. A good rule of thumb is that someone with a useful skill after the communists cause society to collapse is probably at least conservative-ish.

You get to talking about them and someone mentions the rampant crime or the rampant bums and then there is a pause – what will the reaction be? Will it be “Well, crime is the cry of the marginalized and oppressed, and the unhoused are sadly oppressed?” Or will it be, “Yeah, we need to lock up criminals and bulldoze derelicts into the Soylent Green trucks”? Well, usually the references to Soylent Green’s innovative urban pacification strategies come a little later, but you get hints that your interlocutor is open to normality.

Eventually, the Trump question arises. Will you get the wussy “Trump was okay on policy, but his mean tweets turn me off” response? This most often comes from a guy who is really signaling to you that his lib wife won’t put out if he votes for the Donald. Or will you get the “I’ll crawl naked over broken kombucha bottles to vote for him over that crusty old pervert”? Those are the people you want to party with.

Now, I really wish I could say that California is in for a rebirth of the kind of common sense conservatism is exemplified under Governor Ronald Reagan (and other Republican governors) back when I was growing up here, but I can’t. There are too many dumb Californians, and too many of the good ones have left for redder pastures. I may too someday, but in the meantime, I’ll continue my guerilla war on the communists.

The World Is Paying A Deadly Price For Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy

And now it’s Joe Biden’s legacy too.

David Harsanyi reporting for The Federalist

If a belligerent state launched 186 explosive drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles from three fronts against civilian targets within the United States, would Joe Biden call it a “win”?

Would the president tell us that the best thing we can do now is show “restraint”? What if that same terror state’s proxy armies had recently helped murder, rape, and kidnap more than 1,000 American men, women, and children? What if this terror state were trying to obtain nuclear weapons so it could continue to agitate without any consequences?

This is what Joe Biden and the Barack Obama acolytes, Iranian dupes, and Israel antagonists he’s surrounded himself with demand of Jewish State.

And by “Iranian dupes,” I don’t only mean the Jake Sullivans and Antony Blinkens of the world, who worked to elevate the mullahs over Sunni allies and the Israelis, or even a Hamas-bestie like Rob Malley or Israel-hater like Maher Bitar. I mean assets of the Islamic State who promised the Iranian government to help out in any way possible.

Their worldview is a cancer that’s metastasized within the Democratic Party. To these people, Israel will always be the villain. And if the Iranian regime’s murder of more than 600 American servicemen couldn’t cool that bromance, 1,300 dead Jews certainly aren’t going to do the trick.

To begin with, Jared Kushner’s Middle East policy efforts were, by every measure, more successful than not only Obama’s efforts but the decades of Brookings Institute-endorsed failures the region has endured. The Trump administration undercut Palestinian terror efforts, stifled Iranian ambitions, and created space for the Gulf States and Israel to enhance ties.

Biden immediately reversed those gains, reverting to Obama-era Iranian boosterism. We’re now experiencing the consequences of pacifying Islamic ideologues. Obama might have sent the mullahs pallets of cash in the middle of the night, but the Biden administration openly subsidized the Revolutionary Guard with a $6 billion ransom payment, at least $25 billion in sanction relief, including $10 billion via a waiver, and so on.

Let’s also remember that one of Biden’s first foreign policy decisions was to overturn Trump-era policy by releasing millions to Gaza that would be sifted off by Hamas, releasing funding to Hamas-allied UNRWA, and removing the Iranian-backed Houthis from the terror list.

But to truly comprehend how demented our foreign policy has become, consider this: Iran reportedly informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, and the U.S. told Iran through Ankara that the attack should be “within certain limits.” This is a longtime ally of the United States we’re talking about — and a foe that’s murdered and kidnapped Americans for decades.

It should be mind-boggling that Biden likely knew Iran was moving forward with its attack but still gave his goofy and impotent “don’t” when asked about it by the press.

Indeed, the Biden administration’s position seems to be that Israeli military and defense forces exist to allow Iran to have a hissy fit and save face. The Iranian attack is only “symbolic” because it failed. According to officials, the attack, indiscriminately aimed at civilian centers, was designed to cause “mass casualties.”

Just because you shoot at someone and miss doesn’t mean you’re not trying to kill them. Yes, the Iranians were embarrassed. But they almost surely view this as a win. And they also crossed a red line by firing on Israel from their own territory. Yet Israel is apparently the only nation on Earth that is permitted to fully defend itself only if its enemies succeed.

Then again, virtually every conflict against Israel unfurls the same way: Its enemies threaten or attack the country. Israel responds and heads for a victory. Only then does the world demand “restraint.” Finally, the antagonists demand Israel rewind history to a more convenient spot. (Modern Democrats demand that Israel show restraint before it even has a chance to respond. That’s a new twist.)

Those, for instance, who contend that Israel started the conflict when it hit a “diplomatic mission” in Syria last week are engaged in restarting the historical clock when it suits them. There are no Iranian diplomatic missions in Syria. There are buildings where IRGC terror leaders coordinate attacks on civilians — against Arabs as well as Jews. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the “general” Israel killed last week, helped plan the barbarism of Oct 7.

Recall that the United States atomized Qasem Soleimani at a neutral nation’s airport. Though, of course, Obamaites protested that killing as well.

Now, it is something of a cliché to contend that Israel must be right 100 percent of the time while its enemies only need to be right once. It also happens to be true. The lo-fi Hamas attack last year was a devastating failure for the Jewish state and its leadership. Israel, a country the size of New Jersey with a dense population area, relies on deterrence and preemption.

Democrats blamed their strawman, Benjamin Netanyahu, not Hamas or Iran, for trying to “drag” the world into war. The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, perhaps the wrongest person ever to tread on this planet, theorized that the prime minister wanted “a war to shore up his own crumbling political base.”

Meanwhile, Axois reports that Netanyahu was reluctant to strike back while his cabinet wanted to move immediately. Anyone who’s paid five minutes of attention to Israeli politics knows that Netanyahu is frustratingly cautious. The “war hawk” perception of him is a myth, created by the left because of the prime minister’s open opposition to Obama’s mullah bootlicking.

We have no idea what Israel will do. Maybe caution is the best policy. The notion that the Jewish state simply lashes out in revenge and doesn’t rationally consider all its options is preposterous. Whatever happens, it should be Israel’s terms, not Iran’s.

Despite what Obama’s retreads demand.

(Canadian) Feds Spent an Estimated $10.6B on COVID Vaccines; Destroyed 74M Doses Worth $2.1B

 https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/feds-spent-an-estimated-10-6b-on-covid-vaccines-destroyed-74m-doses-worth-2-1b-5630544?&utm_source=MB_article_paid&utm_campaign=MB_article_2024-04-17-ca&utm_medium=email&est=3bn%2FnF8hEBf9Dov4zkem75fx0SRV7kedqephoOvXeErhi2OXUYq%2BG0kWARNFeERkeO%2Bh&utm_content=highlight-news-3

The federal government has destroyed almost a third of all COVID-19 vaccine doses that entered its inventory, after spending an estimated total of $10.6 billion on vaccine purchases.

Information tabled by the government in an Inquiry of Ministry on April 8 provides a breakdown of every dose purchased, donated, and destroyed, listed by manufacturers and product types.

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) says a total of 353.5 million doses were purchased through advanced purchase agreements with under ten manufacturers, enough to vaccinate every Canadian over eight times.

Many of the doses were never delivered, due to a company folding or not developing a vaccine. Many of the doses have also yet to be make it into federal inventory or have been forfeited.

As of Feb. 6, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) accounted for 252,090,980 vaccine doses.

The agency says in the Inquiry document that the information provided does not account for new doses expected to be delivered after February. It also excludes doses held in federal inventory that haven’t been distributed, donated, or destroyed.

Out of the 252 million doses, over 138 million were distributed domestically, nearly 29 million were donated internationally, and close to 74 million were destroyed. The destruction, due to expiry or cold chain excursions, has impacted 29 percent of all doses as of February.

The government released the information further to an order paper question from Conservative MP Dean Allison. Mr. Allison asked for the amounts Ottawa paid vaccine manufacturers but the figures were not provided, with the government citing contract confidentiality.

The Office of the Auditor General conducted an audit of vaccine procurement in 2022 and estimated the cost per dose at around $30.

Based on this estimate, Ottawa would have spent over $10.6 billion on 353.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, with over $2.2 billion being wasted on destroyed doses.

A December briefing note for Health Minister Mark Holland indicates that PHAC does not intend to purchase additional COVID-19 vaccines “once firm contractual deliveries under existing Advance Purchase Agreements are completed at the end of the calendar year 2024.”

Information in the Inquiry of Ministry tabled by PSPC provides data on the advance purchase agreements for each manufacturer.

Ottawa purchased 119 million doses from Pfizer Canada, 78.5 million doses from Moderna, 10 million doses from Janssen, 47 million doses from Novavax, and 27 million from AstraZeneca and affiliates.

The federal government also purchased 52 million doses from Sanofi Pasteur and 20 million from Medicago.

No doses were delivered by Sanofi and Medicago, with the latter closing its Quebec operations in 2023. Ottawa invested $323 million in Medicago but received no doses, and subsequently recouped only $40 million of the money invested.

MPs in the House of Commons have focused on the Medicago debacle and not the loss from the Sanofi investment. PSPC has refused to provide information on the value of that contract.

There was also major waste with the products purchased from other manufacturers. Almost the totality of the 38 million vaccines obtained from Novavax ended up being discarded, save for 278,860 doses.

As for the two vector-based vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), they were quickly all but pulled from circulation over blood clot concerns.

Out of over 25 million purchased doses of AstraZeneca as of February, 3 million were distributed domestically. Over 13 million doses were destroyed and nearly 9 million doses were donated to poorer countries.

With regard to Johnson & Johnson, only 45,095 doses were distributed domestically out of 10 million doses purchased. Over 9.8 million doses were donated and 143,705 were destroyed.

Countries receiving the most doses include Mexico with 3 million doses of the Pfizer product, Nigeria with 2.6 million doses of Janssen, and Bangladesh with 2.2 million doses of AstraZeneca.

COVID-19 stopped being considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization in May 2023.

Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization, however, continues to recommend a spring booster dose for adults over 65, for residents of long-term care homes or seniors’ residences, and individuals aged over 6 months who are moderately to severely immunocompromised.

MEANWHILE IN THE US?

Millions of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Set to Expire and Be Destroyed This Summer

By Jennifer Chesak 

Published on June 22, 2021

https://www.verywellhealth.com/expiring-doses-covid-19-vaccines-in-danger-of-waste-5189461

Costs not revealed