"Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims," writes Juan Cole. (Photo: CNBC/YouTube Screengrab)
Pence, Who Backed Muslim Visa Ban, Gets Vaccine Invented by Muslim Immigrants
Pence also praised far right-wing evangelical leader John Hagee. Hagee has said that Muslim Americans are not real Americans.
Defeated Vice President Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday.
Here is why he is a hypocrite.
Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban "unconstitutional," he folded when Trump insisted on it and proudly stood behind the Mad President when he signed the order.
Pence also praised far right-wing evangelical leader John Hagee. Hagee has said that Muslim Americans are not real Americans.
Pence has, further, improperly pressured USAID to route US foreign aid to the Middle East away from Muslims and to Christians instead.
Pence is a serial science denier. He says smoking cigarettes does not cause cancer. He has called the human-caused climate emergency "a myth."
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine involves science and Muslim immigrants, so why is he getting it?
Pfizer partnered in developing the vaccine with a German firm, BioNTech, which was founded and is headed by the Turkish-German husband-wife team of Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. BioNTech really developed the vaccine, though Pfizer is the one with the ability to mass-manufacture and distribute it.
The two are Turkish-German Muslims.
Tureci was born in Lastrup, Lower Saxony, in 1967 to an immigrant Turkish family. Her father was a physician working at a Catholic hospital. She jokes that she is the "Turkish Prussian."
She is among the wealthiest 100 Germans.
Her husband, Ugur Sahin, was brought to Germany from Iskenderun, Turkey, at the age of 4. His father worked in a Ford automobile plant. Ordinarily in the typical European education system, he would have been shunted off to a technical school, but he managed to get on an academic track, and excelled at chemistry. He was the archetypal nerd, working in the laboratory at college until all hours of the night, then bicycling back to his apartment.
He is now worth about $5 billion.
Iskenderun was known as Alexandretta. It had been part of Syria but while France was occupying Syria after WW II, it had a special administrative position. France granted it and its district limited independence in 1937, and by 1939 it was incorporated through referendum into Turkey.
There are both Sunni and Alawi Shiite Muslims there.
Sahin and Tureci started Operation Light Speed to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus last January, and were the first to see their vaccine authorized.
Hannes Swoboda wrote at Der Standard:
To my surprise, I recently read an extremely positive contribution by the conservative economist Hans-Werner Sinn about Turkish migrants. The article in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" was entitled "An admirable success for our Turkish immigrants". To be concrete, it was about the founders and CEOs of the company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. We owe to them the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus. "The success of Sahin and Tureci could jumpstart the resurgence of the German pharmaceutical industry ... It also proves the benefits that an aging society like Germany can achieve through immigration."
Hans-Werner Sinn appears to be an honest conservative. Mike Pence, not so much.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just four days to go in our Spring Campaign, we are not even halfway to our goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Defeated Vice President Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday.
Here is why he is a hypocrite.
Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban "unconstitutional," he folded when Trump insisted on it and proudly stood behind the Mad President when he signed the order.
Pence also praised far right-wing evangelical leader John Hagee. Hagee has said that Muslim Americans are not real Americans.
Pence has, further, improperly pressured USAID to route US foreign aid to the Middle East away from Muslims and to Christians instead.
Pence is a serial science denier. He says smoking cigarettes does not cause cancer. He has called the human-caused climate emergency "a myth."
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine involves science and Muslim immigrants, so why is he getting it?
Pfizer partnered in developing the vaccine with a German firm, BioNTech, which was founded and is headed by the Turkish-German husband-wife team of Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. BioNTech really developed the vaccine, though Pfizer is the one with the ability to mass-manufacture and distribute it.
The two are Turkish-German Muslims.
Tureci was born in Lastrup, Lower Saxony, in 1967 to an immigrant Turkish family. Her father was a physician working at a Catholic hospital. She jokes that she is the "Turkish Prussian."
She is among the wealthiest 100 Germans.
Her husband, Ugur Sahin, was brought to Germany from Iskenderun, Turkey, at the age of 4. His father worked in a Ford automobile plant. Ordinarily in the typical European education system, he would have been shunted off to a technical school, but he managed to get on an academic track, and excelled at chemistry. He was the archetypal nerd, working in the laboratory at college until all hours of the night, then bicycling back to his apartment.
He is now worth about $5 billion.
Iskenderun was known as Alexandretta. It had been part of Syria but while France was occupying Syria after WW II, it had a special administrative position. France granted it and its district limited independence in 1937, and by 1939 it was incorporated through referendum into Turkey.
There are both Sunni and Alawi Shiite Muslims there.
Sahin and Tureci started Operation Light Speed to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus last January, and were the first to see their vaccine authorized.
Hannes Swoboda wrote at Der Standard:
To my surprise, I recently read an extremely positive contribution by the conservative economist Hans-Werner Sinn about Turkish migrants. The article in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" was entitled "An admirable success for our Turkish immigrants". To be concrete, it was about the founders and CEOs of the company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. We owe to them the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus. "The success of Sahin and Tureci could jumpstart the resurgence of the German pharmaceutical industry ... It also proves the benefits that an aging society like Germany can achieve through immigration."
Hans-Werner Sinn appears to be an honest conservative. Mike Pence, not so much.
Defeated Vice President Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday.
Here is why he is a hypocrite.
Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban "unconstitutional," he folded when Trump insisted on it and proudly stood behind the Mad President when he signed the order.
Pence also praised far right-wing evangelical leader John Hagee. Hagee has said that Muslim Americans are not real Americans.
Pence has, further, improperly pressured USAID to route US foreign aid to the Middle East away from Muslims and to Christians instead.
Pence is a serial science denier. He says smoking cigarettes does not cause cancer. He has called the human-caused climate emergency "a myth."
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine involves science and Muslim immigrants, so why is he getting it?
Pfizer partnered in developing the vaccine with a German firm, BioNTech, which was founded and is headed by the Turkish-German husband-wife team of Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. BioNTech really developed the vaccine, though Pfizer is the one with the ability to mass-manufacture and distribute it.
The two are Turkish-German Muslims.
Tureci was born in Lastrup, Lower Saxony, in 1967 to an immigrant Turkish family. Her father was a physician working at a Catholic hospital. She jokes that she is the "Turkish Prussian."
She is among the wealthiest 100 Germans.
Her husband, Ugur Sahin, was brought to Germany from Iskenderun, Turkey, at the age of 4. His father worked in a Ford automobile plant. Ordinarily in the typical European education system, he would have been shunted off to a technical school, but he managed to get on an academic track, and excelled at chemistry. He was the archetypal nerd, working in the laboratory at college until all hours of the night, then bicycling back to his apartment.
He is now worth about $5 billion.
Iskenderun was known as Alexandretta. It had been part of Syria but while France was occupying Syria after WW II, it had a special administrative position. France granted it and its district limited independence in 1937, and by 1939 it was incorporated through referendum into Turkey.
There are both Sunni and Alawi Shiite Muslims there.
Sahin and Tureci started Operation Light Speed to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus last January, and were the first to see their vaccine authorized.
Hannes Swoboda wrote at Der Standard:
To my surprise, I recently read an extremely positive contribution by the conservative economist Hans-Werner Sinn about Turkish migrants. The article in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" was entitled "An admirable success for our Turkish immigrants". To be concrete, it was about the founders and CEOs of the company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. We owe to them the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus. "The success of Sahin and Tureci could jumpstart the resurgence of the German pharmaceutical industry ... It also proves the benefits that an aging society like Germany can achieve through immigration."
Hans-Werner Sinn appears to be an honest conservative. Mike Pence, not so much.