BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 16: Traffic moves along Interstate 80 on February 16, 2022 in Berkeley, California. The Biden administration is finalizing a waiver that will allow the State of California to resume setting its own vehicle emissions standards three years after the Trump administration rolled back a waiver that was decades old. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Views: 12
By Jack Phillips for The Epoch Times
How funny is this? CA Mandates use of EVs, but can’t get enough electricity for their current demand. –TPR
Authorities in California extended a “Flex Alert” telling residents to conserve energy, including not charging their electric vehicles, on Sunday afternoon and evening.
The alert has been in effect for several days in the midst of a heat wave that is slated to last through Labor Day.
The California Independent System Operator, the manager of the state’s power grid, issuedthe statewide Flex Alert from 4 to 9 p.m. Residents are urged to set their thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, avoid using major appliances, avoid charging electric vehicles, and turning off unnecessary lights.
“Additional Flex Alerts will likely be called as heat will only intensify through Tuesday, with little relief from triple-digit temperatures seen over the next several days,” the operator wrote. “Daytime high temperatures are forecast at 10-20 degrees above normal in much of the state through the Labor Day weekend and into next week, and record-breaking heat is projected in some parts of California.”
Elliot Mainzer, Cal ISO president, told local media this weekend that Sept. 1 saw the “highest demand for power” since September 2017 in California, adding that it’s “a dress rehearsal for what’s going to be much more significantly stressed conditions here as we get into the heart of the weekend.”
The National Weather Service says 100-degree temperatures are currently hitting Los Angeles, the state’s most populated city, on Sunday. Sacramento and other areas in the Central Valley, meanwhile, are forecast to hit 113 degrees F on Monday and Tuesday. San Jose, another heavily populated city, will see temperatures over 100 F on Monday and Tuesday.
In recent years, the California grid operator has issued flex alerts and made similar statements calling on residents to hold off on charging electric cars.
The operator in mid-July 2021 posted a Twitter message that Californians between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. should not charge their electric vehicles and other devices.
Electric Vehicle Mandate
Cal ISO issued Flex Alert targeting electric vehicles last week. The move prompted some to criticize a regulation that was passed recently by the California Air Resources Board to phase out the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 in favor of electric vehicles and some plug-in hybrids. The rule was backed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, who hailed the vote.
Some automotive groups say the new statewide mandates will be very challenging to meet. Other critics noted the recent issuance of Flex Alerts suggests a transition to electric vehicles is not feasible.
Several unnamed California drivers who were interviewed by KTLA-TV questioned the 2035 mandate amid the continuous days of Flex Alerts.
“If we can’t do these things today, how are we going to do when everything needs to be electric?” one driver asked last week.
“Unless you have a home charger it’s an absolute disaster,” an electric vehicle owner, named Rebecca, told the station.
Child exploitation suffered a crushing defeat Wednesday after several parent organizations rallied in Sacramento against California Senate Bill 866.
The controversial bill would have allowed minors as young as 15 (12 years old was initially proposed) to agree to receive ANY vaccine without their parent’s consent. But it was pulled by State Senator Scott Wiener just hours before the vote.
Wiener stated he pulled the bill because of “death threats, harassment, and a lack of vote.” But in reality, he was just being a sore loser.
“We’re close but a couple votes short on our teen vaccine bill (SB 866) on the Assembly floor. We’re thus moving the bill to inactive.
The anti-vaxxer harassment campaign worked this time, at the expense of teen health. We lost this round but aren’t going anywhere.”
“A couple votes short,” he said. But that’s not true, according to fellow California politician (D) Patrick O’Donnell.
“Believe me… it was more than a couple votes short!”
In fact, opposition to this bill had BIPARTISAN support from both Democrats and Republicans. No matter what Scott Wiener would like to tell you, it was a very UNPOPULAR bill!
To discuss the impact of this historic victory, co-founder and executive director of PERK, Amy Bohn, joined Del Bigtree on the Highwire.
“Now I don’t know what you feel about being called an anti-vaxxer, Del commented. “But I would call that a win. And I hope there’s a lot of people that are dancing in the streets over this when that happened yesterday (8/31).”
Amy replied:
“I don’t really care what he [Scott Wiener] calls us at this point. All that matters is that there was a massive army of parents and organizations, hundreds of organizations, fighting this together. He’s a poor loser right now because we defeated his bill, and it was a group effort.
Freedom Angels were up at the Capitol till midnight almost every single day. Our group was in charge of so many aspects and pivotal moments along the way. Facts, law, truth, justice, this is something that it really doesn’t matter what they call us. The stigma doesn’t matter because we actually have power now.
We have a presence at the Capitol; we have a presence in the media. And it’s because of everyone. It’s historic! Honestly, this is a historic moment for California, and I think that Senator Wiener is just trying to downplay it. But the truth is, he didn’t have the votes! And he was short by probably a lot more than just a few.”
Del responded, “I really think this is the biggest win.”
“This was the next step in this sort of agenda to separate the children from the parents — to basically state the government owns your child. They’re property of the government of California, and they’re not of the parents. Therefore, we should be able to get them to do things and then hide those things from their own parents.
How big do you think this is? When we were watching California go through this on the front lines?
“Oh, this is historic right now,” Amy said.
“That’s what’s happening. And you were talking about the political lines, Republican, Democrat. The reason why we won in California right now is because those lines didn’t matter. The Democrats were unified with the Republicans with bipartisan opposition to this bill. So that shows you that if that can happen in California, the ripple effect of that — and even just the fact that we won here together with everybody — that can happen across the entire country.
So no longer just your political affiliation or political party is going to be what decides these things, the outcome was decided — of course, it related to the votes — [but] because of the Democrats. It was everybody together, and they had to oppose this bill with their colleagues in order for it to be defeated. I think that’s part of [why] we made history yesterday.”
I agree, Amy. It was historic. We can barely get Democrats and Republicans to agree on anything these days, but the fact that parents rallied together in the state of CALIFORNIA to oppose such a bill just goes to show how unified our country is on medical freedom.
If parents in California are thinking like this, you know darn well that every other state is thinking the same way.
It’s truly something beautiful, and it makes me very optimistic that any subsequent vaccine bills that violate medical freedom and ethics are sure to be met with BACKLASH and bound to fail.
Thanks, Amy, for your efforts and the amazing news.
Joe Biden is getting all kinds of backlash from the despicable speech he delivered last night at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, attacking millions of Americans who want to “Make America Great Again” and supporting President Donald Trump.
We covered some of the hot takes, with many people comparing his unprecedented attacks to Communist or Nazi-like tactics, Biden acting like the fascist he was accusing others of being. They also hit on the visuals with the improper use of the Marines and the evil blood-red backdrop.
Among the hot take was Trump who chastised Biden for essentially threatening Americans and saying if Biden doesn’t want to make America great again he shouldn’t be representing America. Trump also called going after Americans like that insane.
Even CNN bashed Biden for the use of the Marines in such a speech. On the other hand, CNN also reportedly softened the look of the visuals so it didn’t look as bad.
But now Biden seems to be trying to walk it back a bit. Or maybe he just can’t even remember what he said the night before. Now he’s trying to say he was only talking about people who called for “violence.” That of course was a lie, that is not what he said during the speech or the whole prior week. It means he knows now that he screwed up and went too far.
Biden continued to backpedal from the Independence Hall speech. “When people voted for Donald Trump and support him now, they weren’t voting for attacking the capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling an election. They were voting for a philosophy that he put forward.” He claimed that he was just talking about the failure to acknowledge when elections were won.
Too late, we heard what you said, you very much were attacking all those people who did nothing to deserve it, who aren’t violent or extremist, but whom you essentially declared Enemies of the State.
Biden today: "I don't consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country."
So he just wants us to pretend he didn’t say it and ignore everything he said last night? What kind of ridiculous administration is this? They can’t even do evil oppressive government right, they’re that messed up.
But you know what a failure this all was when he immediately has to backtrack from it the next morning
It’s our time to bat. The chance to convene a Grand Jury investigation against the CDC is finally here as Dr. Henry Ealy, and the team behind beyondthecon.com finally received a late response from the defendants on August 27.
We “now have only until September 12 to respond and urge the court, on behalf of freedom-loving Americans, to rule in our favor and get our petition before a Grand Jury to investigate our allegations against the defendants.”
So what is the CDC being accused of?
Willful misconduct and criminal data fraud.
But let’s focus on death certificates, as Dr. Henry Ealy eloquently explains the abhorrent actions taken by the CDC to inflate the COVID death count.
“We’ve all heard out there that the death certificates are wrong; people got hit by a bus and called COVID death and so forth, right? We’ve all heard that. We’ve even seen with a new filing by one of our colleagues, John Beaudoin, in Massachusetts. He got all the death certificates in Massachusetts, and he’s showing — he’s showing that people who died from the shot were counted as COVID deaths and not adverse event deaths.”
Dr. Naomi Wolf almost jumped out of her seat.
“People who died from the shot are counted as COVID deaths?!”
Ealy confirms.
“We are seeing this everywhere, Naomi. People who died from the shot are being counted as COVID deaths.”
Naomi asks, “What’s the evidence in the records that they died from the shot? Shortly after the injection or —”
Ealy: “There was one that died within five minutes of getting the injection, but they called it a COVID death.”
Naomi: “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
Ealy: “Right? So this was a little girl. This is a little girl.”
Naomi: “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
Ealy: “So John [Beaudoin] got all this. Some angel behind the scenes gave him access to all of the death certificates. His team broke everything down. We’re actually going to use some of his work to corroborate what we’re saying in our response to their most recent motion to dismiss.”
“They made a little sleight of hand and said, ‘If you had pre-existing conditions and got COVID, or we think you got COVID, we’re going to ignore the pre-existing conditions — those aren’t going to be considered the cause of death — it’s always going to be COVID. And that’s the exact opposite thing that they do with every other cause of death.
And what it allowed them to do, Naomi, was to hyperinflate the death count so it looks like an emergency, when in fact, what the people really should have been listed as dying of is diabetes, or of heart failure or hypertension, or the pre-existing condition because it’s always been that your oldest known pre-existing condition is the cause of death. And infection is what is termed as an initiating factor but not a cause. And it’s a little subtle distinction, but it’s crucial when we talk about the death count for COVID.”
“So what we’re saying is that we have evidence to support a Grand Jury investigation, because what’s happened thanks to Robert Redfield did, Alex Azar did, what Xavier Becerra and Rochelle Walensky continue to do. They’ve just adopted all of those early policies, so that makes them culpable.
And what a little-known man by the name of Brian Moyer, with the head of the National Vital Statistics systems — what they all did, was they changed how death certificates were reported, violated three federal laws in the process, did not open up public comment, did not seek oversight by the Office of Management and Budget, which sits under the President’s jurisdiction, and therefore, went rogue.
And in doing that — this is where it gets crazy, Naomi. In doing that simultaneously, what they did, was the HHS erected a structure for Medicare-Medicaid insurance fraud. That led to the misappropriation of $3.5 TRILLION of U.S. taxpayer money throughout this supposed ‘crisis,’ all based upon the sleight of hand of a death certificate.”
If you’re as mad as I am and want to see these criminals behind bars, please sign this petition at beyondthecon.com. DEMAND a Grand jury investigation and share this website with all receptive family and friends. The goal is 1 million signatures before September 12.
Part 2: Ivermectin vindicated – 2 years too late
“Horse Paste” Has Been Listed as an Antiviral COVID Treatment on the NIH’s Website
The suppression of this drug “is one of the greatest stories of our lifetime, and we’re not going to let it go.”
Believe it or not, after two years of censorship, suppression, threatening of doctors’ licenses, and relentless smear campaigns as being a “horse dewormer,” the HUMAN drug of ivermectin has risen from the ashes and quietly made its way to the antiviral COVID therapy list on the NIH’s website.
Now, the description has still not changed, but it wasn’t even included in the same list as these pictured drugs before per OAN. So, baby steps. But progress.
Not too long ago, it was one of NIH’s studies that piled on a “mountain of evidence showing ivermectin is not effective at treating COVID-19.”
This was done on a controlled population of 88,102 subjects, which is a gigantic sample size for a scientific study.
Here’s the quick rundown.
Among 223,128 subjects from the city of Itajaí, 159,560 were 18 years old or up and were not infected by COVID-19 until July 7, 2020, from which 45,716 (28.7%) did not use and 113,844 (71.3%) used ivermectin. Among ivermectin users, 33,971 (29.8%) used irregularly (up to 60 mg) and 8,325 (7.3%) used regularly (more than 180 mg).
So what they were looking for here was a dose-dependent enhanced effect. As the dose increases, do we see a greater and stronger effect? That is the greatest evidence that ivermectin is not an anomaly — that it actually works, and that’s exactly what they saw in this study.
And here’s the conclusion.
“Mortality rate was 92% lower in regular users than non-users…”
“Non-use of ivermectin was associated with a 12.5-fold increase in mortality rate and a seven-fold increased risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to the regular use of ivermectin. This dose-response efficacy reinforces the prophylactic effects of ivermectin against COVID-19.”
Now think about this…
Del Bigtree, asks.
“You have Francis Collins at the head of the NIH.”
“You have Tony Fauci at NIH inside of NIAID.”
“And so, these two guys have come out strongly against ivermectin; they were pushing the vaccine. And as we pointed out many times, you could not get the emergency use authorization to rush the vaccine out if there was a product that could protect you from this illness, which this [study] shows prophylactically, it completely does.
And so they needed to squash it. So now, when we look at really one of the only studies found on the planet Earth that show that ivermectin was not effective, it goes and is led by the two guys who literally could go to jail if we prove that their denial of ivermectin got a half a million people killed in the United States of America, got doctors fired for no reason, whatsoever, and then put their patients who would have been saved in peril.
Do you realize how massive this story actually is?
I’ve been thinking about this. We keep watching these headlines go by. You keep tuning into the Highwire, and we’re really getting numb to what are horrific stories, outrageous stories of government interference when it comes to living humans in the United States of America. Is it possible Tony Fauci is responsible for over a half a million deaths within two years in the United States of America? Do you realize where that will put him in human history amongst perhaps the dictators of the world?”
“And then how many people around the world followed our mandates? How many millions didn’t use ivermectin because of this study done at the NIH? Now, I’m not saying the study is fraudulent. But what I am saying is there’s no way that we can use that as the only study, especially given the fact that we recognize the sheer bias that has to be taking place at NIH to protect their own butts.
So that against the mountain of evidence that has come up against ivermectin. This is one of the greatest stories of our lifetime, and we’re not going to let it go.”
Exactly, Del. We CAN’T let it go. Because if their actions — their negligence (at best) or deliberate suppression of ivermectin to push a vaccine agenda (at worst) gets brushed to the side and called a “whoopsie,” what precedent is that going to set?
That you can get away with deliberately squashing life-saving medications in order to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical industry? That is no world that I want anyone to live in, but sadly, that is the world we seem to be in, and it has to change.
If you want justice — if you want accountability for these criminals, please sign the petition below. Dr. Henry Ealy and his team are hoping to raise 1 million signatures to bring forth to a judge to demand a Grand Jury investigation against the CDC.
And if that goes through, it opens the door for Fauci & Friends. Please sign the petition below and share it with all receptive family and friends.
President Joe Biden criticizes state legislatures for passing election reforms in a speech July 13, 2021, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Views: 38
Joey gave a speech attacking over 70 million Americans. Let’s look at his accomplishments. Snicker snicker snort snort. So let’s look at the great things he’s done since January 20th, 2021.
First day he put thousands of Americans out of work with his shut down of the pipeline, fracking and drilling on federal land. Those jobs were good paying and most were union. Joe bag of donuts.,000
Price of gas quickly doubled, open borders, defeat and retreat in Afghanistan, Inflation, three vaccines but over 600,000 deaths, and the Russia/ Ukraine war.
Did I mention higher crime rates, out of control spending, higher cost of living, and a DOJ going after American citizens and a former President.
Greenwich, Connecticut – Jeremy Boland, Assistant Principal of Cos Cob Elementary School admitted he discriminates against hiring Catholics. Project Veritas.
Views: 2
Back in the early 70’s I experienced my first example of Religious bigotry. It was working in the steel mill at the time. I was paired up with a guy we’ll call Frank All week he would barely acknowledge me and the conversations were one or two words from him. By the fourth day I lost it and asked him what was his problem? I was Catholic and he was Orange Irish.
Today we still have folks like Frank. Only difference was that Frank was a Republican. Today that hate comes from the left. Project Veritas
caught one of those ass holes.
Greenwich CT Assistant Principal’s Hiring Discrimination Ensures ‘Subtle’ Child Indoctrination; ‘You Don’t Hire’ Catholics Because They Are More ‘Conservative’ … ‘Progressive Teachers’ Are ‘Savvy About Delivering a Democratic Message’
On this matter, Boland affirms that any teacher who refuses to acknowledge a child’s gender preferences has no place in his Elementary School.
“So, if you have someone [teacher] who is hardcore religious or hardcore conservative, they will probably say something detrimental to the effect, ‘Well, I don’t think kids have enough knowledge to make that decision [gender identity] at this age,’” Boland said.
“You’re out. You’re done,” he concluded.
The Elementary School administrator goes on to say that he discriminates against older individuals as well.
Now his hatred comes across politically, and older folks, but in my experience I’ve found WASP’S more conservative as a group.
A voter fills out his ballot in Palos Hills, Illinois, on primary day June 28, 2022. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)
Views: 11
By Beth Brelje for Epoch Times Aug. 21, 2022Updated: Aug. 23, 2022
Personal information of 56 million voters shared
Your voter registration shouldn’t be used by another person to cast a ballot.
When someone moves or dies, their name should be removed from the registered voters’ roll so it can’t be used to vote. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible people from voter rolls.
It’s usually handled at the county or state level, but today, 33 states and the District of Columbia, are outsourcing parts of this task to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).
According to a report by Verity Vote, ERIC, which claims that it’s nonpartisan, is actually connected to left-leaning backers and engages in a host of troubling practices that could sway elections across the nation.
Verity Vote is a group of citizen volunteers with professional data research and investigation backgrounds who examine election integrity throughout the country.
New Jersey and Massachusetts joined ERIC in August. The other ERIC member states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, plus Washington, D.C.
In a July 13 letter, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin gave notice that the state was officially dropping its ERIC membership. This followed a January statement in which Ardoin announced that Louisiana was suspending participation in the voter registration agreement “effective immediately,” citing concerns about questionable funding sources and the possibility of partisan actors having access to ERIC data for political purposes, potentially undermining voter confidence.
The Epoch Times has reached out to ERIC and a connected organization, the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), for comment. Neither of the nonprofit organizations responded.
Partisan Leanings
David Becker is CEIR’s director and founder. He also founded and is still a board member of ERIC. Becker didn’t respond to a request for comment.
According to its website, “CEIR’s mission is to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation and ensure election integrity and security.”
But CEIR leans to the left with its assertion dismissing the election integrity concerns of many Republicans over the 2020 election, saying: “The 2020 general election was the most secure in American history.”
It calls claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent “The Big Lie,” and the CEIR website states that the majority of the GOP and Trump supporters see conspiracies—some of which U.S. media outlets had previously raised concerns about—assume the worst about election integrity, and are pushing harmful, unnecessary new election laws.
Before forming ERIC and CEIR, Becker was a senior staff attorney at the left-leaning People for the American Way and director of election initiatives at Pew Charitable Trusts, according to Influence Watch.
In 2020, CEIR received nearly $70 million from the left-leaning Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and distributed $64 million in grants to fund “urgent voter education assistance” in 23 different states, with the largest amounts going to Pennsylvania ($13.2 million) and Michigan ($11.9 million).
On its tax-exempt 990 form, ERIC describes itself as working to improve the accuracy of U.S. voter rolls by providing member states with information on voter registration records that are inaccurate because of voters moving or dying. ERIC provides lists of possible ineligible voters, then states may contact them by mail to verify the information, then adjust the voter rolls.
Verity Vote found that states are slightly better at this than ERIC. While non-ERIC states removed an average of 2.3 percent from voter rolls, ERIC states removed an average of 1.9 percent.
Using the data that states provide, ERIC also runs a get-out-the-vote operation, giving lists of eligible but unregistered (EBU) residents to states a minimum of every 425 days. As per the ERIC agreement, states must contact every person on the list and inform them how to register to vote.
This results in a significant swelling of voter rolls. The report shows EBU additions consistently exceed suggested removals—by 10 times.
Sharing Private information
Member states give ERIC more than voter registration records. By agreement, they also hand over all records of individuals who went to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and other places where people are given a chance to register to vote.
In Pennsylvania, that includes state offices that provide public assistance or services to people with disabilities, armed forces recruitment centers, area agencies on aging, county mental health/mental retardation offices, centers for independent living, and the county clerk of court. It’s similar in other states.
In the right hands, personal information gleaned from these agencies could predict which political party a person may belong to.
Since voter registration is offered in these places, all personal information is shared with ERIC, even if the individual didn’t register to vote, Verity Vote found.
“This appears to violate federal law,” the report reads. “The NVRA prohibits states from sharing any records that relate to a declination to register to vote, or to the identity of a voter registration agency through which any particular voter is registered.”
ERIC’s website states that it has handled 56 million voters.
Although ERIC is required to protect personally identifiable information, the report documents how ERIC shares the data with CEIR.
“CEIR is creating the lists of voters who should be targeted for voter registration efforts and laundering the lists back through ERIC for distribution to the states,” the report reads.
In September 2021, Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers investigating the 2020 election subpoenaed the Department of State, requesting detailed voter lists including name, date of birth, driver’s license number, last four digits of Social Security number, address, and, date of last voting activity.
The Democratic governor, state lawmakers, and secretary of state went to court to block access, citing the protection of voters’ personal information.
In court papers, the Department of State stated that it couldn’t provide the information to investigators because “bad actors who gain access to this information would have all the data they need to control the voters’ registrations, and even their votes.”
Verity Vote noted in its report that the Department of State “was comfortable sharing data about voters and citizens who have chosen not to register to vote with Zuckerberg funded CEIR but went to court to keep that data from the Pennsylvania Senate.”
Targeted Communication
Imagine the power to text targeted voters on election day. CEIR is launching a free service for election officials called REVERE, aimed at combating disinformation in real time, according to the report.
It’s unclear who gets to define what constitutes disinformation.
In a communication from Becker to an official in Georgia, Becker describes REVERE’s power.
“REVERE will enable states to draw on phone numbers and email addresses contained in the voter file, and send texts, emails, and even voicemails to any set of voters (a particular precinct or county, older voters, etc.) rapidly. This will allow states to proactively communicate with voters about how to vote effectively (deadlines, early voting, etc.), send links to official websites (drop box and early voting locations), and rapidly respond to disinformation,” he wrote.
In its report, Verity Vote asks if it’s proper to entangle the private motivations of CEIR and ERIC with the governmental role to execute elections, placing the power to judge what’s disinformation—and whom to distribute it to—in the hands of this public/private partnership.
It would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school
By Pierre Kory – – Tuesday, August 23, 2022
OPINION:
While the attention was focused on Mar-a-Lago, Denmark made major news by banning the COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 18. You read that correctly: The Scandinavian nation, often heralded by pro-vaccine liberal politicians as a health model for the United States, issued a policy declaring it “no longer be possible” for young people to get vaccinated, citing the low risk posed by the virus.
Meanwhile, back home, the Biden administration, whose inner circle includes secret consultants for Pfizer, is for the most part letting states move forward with a similar laissez-faire attitude toward vaccination requirements with one notable exception: Washington, D.C., which is requiring all students over the age of 12 receive a vaccine.
The discrepancy between the treatment of children in our nation’s capital and the rest of the country reflects a deeper disconnect ripping our nation apart. It also undermines President Biden’s commitment to racial equity. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden, who owes his 2020 victory to Black voters in South Carolina, turned heads by declaring, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump then you ain’t Black.” On Inauguration Day, he signed an executive order outlining his “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”
Yet when Team Biden moved back to Washington, they found a region moving away from its “Chocolate City” roots. In 1977 when Mr. Biden was a first-term senator, D.C. was 77% Black. Today, that number has been cut nearly in half to just 41%.
The city’s gentrification has deepened inequality. Every latte shop or yoga studio in the Navy Yard or Logan Circle pushes lower-income Washingtonians east of the Anacostia River, where Wards 7 and 8 remain nearly 80% Black and with average income less than half its counterparts across the river.
If enforced, Washington’s vaccine mandate would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school, creating another obstacle for a population government should be empowering. The elite ruling class is happy to plaster “Black Lives Matters” stickers on their Teslas while supporting policies that hold back the next generation mere miles away.
Over socially distanced glasses of chardonnay, well-to-do Beltway residents cling to their COVID-19 narrative where vaccines funded by the big pharmaceutical companies offer the only hope. In their world, no one — not even children — is safe without a vaccine. Anyone who dares deviate from the company line is dismissed as a backwater Trump-supporting conspiracist, even lifelong Democrats like me.
They ignore data that challenges their point of view, including data finding 70% of U.S. public schools reported an increase in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic, or a Harvard University study showing “remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps.”
These districts are not in places where parents can earn their six-figure salaries from Zoom, ordering Uber Eats and enjoying a steady diet of Netflix.
As a medical doctor who has helped more than 700 patients recover from COVID-19 and its complications, I have treated numerous adults and children injured by the vaccine and can assure you that there is a significant cause for concern. I’ve outlined the large and growing body of data on the injury risks of COVID-19 vaccinations — particularly among healthy children — which you can read in a vaccine exemption letter that I provided to concerned parents who wanted to send their children to summer camp without exposing them to these risks.
Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64
The true scope of harm is difficult to grasp because our public health agencies refuse to engage in the debate for fear of undermining their preferred narrative. But there are plenty of signals. Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64 beginning in early to mid-2021, when the vaccination campaign began. A similar trend is evident in German health insurance claims data — and the CEO of one of the country’s largest health insurance companies was fired for releasing data suggesting the government was concealing the extent of vaccine injuries.
Two years ago, candidate Joe Biden pledged to “shut down the virus.” Now, with more deaths on his watch than his predecessor’s, he and his allies still refuse to change course. Instead, they are clinging to a failed political agenda, sacrificing the next generation at its altar. Washington’s vaccine mandates will hurt Black children the most, undermining Mr. Biden’s equity agenda. In November, let’s hope a reckoning is brewing for those who have suffered the most from a failed public health response. Our children, especially the most underserved, depend on it.
Dr. Pierre Kory is president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.
Anthony Fauci is ending his long and celebrated government career by being widely lauded for getting so much so very wrong on Covid-19.
Now 81 years old, Dr. Fauci has spent 38 years as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. He has been rightly honored for his many contributions over the decades, most notably during the fight against AIDS, for which he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. But to Covid-19 he brought a monomaniacal focus on vanquishing a single virus, whatever the cost—neglecting the damage that can follow when public health loses sight of the public’s health.
As the lead medical authority to two administrations on Covid-19, Dr. Fauci was unwavering in his advocacy for draconian policies. What were the impact of those policies on millions of Americans? And what would the country look like now had our public health experts taken a different approach? As Dr. Fauci is preparing to leave his post, those are a few of the questions worth asking as we consider his various Covid-19 legacies.
Dr. Fauci attends the National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 1989. (Deanne Fitzmaurice via Getty Images)
On Children:
Very early on in this pandemic, we knew that there was an extremely stratified risk from Covid. The elderly and those with co-morbidities were especially vulnerable, while children were extremely unlikely to get dangerously ill.
Instead of acting on the good news for children—or drawing on the ample experience in Scandinavian and European countries where schools were open and students were without masks—American kids were seen as vectors of disease. Young children were forced to wear masks inside school and out, affecting the language and social development of many. The effects of school closures will play out for decades, but we already know that children suffered major learning loss, and many left school never to return. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Fauci supported the most oppressive restrictions for children, including school closures and mandatory cloth masking.
Yesterday on Fox Neil Cavuto asked Dr. Fauci whether Covid restrictions “went too far” and if they “forever damaged” the children “who couldn’t go to school except remotely.” Dr. Fauci replied: “I don’t think it’s forever irreparably damaged anyone.”
Parents know otherwise.
A generation is coping with learning loss, and the impact has been the worst in poor and minority communities. According to the Brookings Institute, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20 percent in math and 15 percent in reading over the pandemic. Meantime, anxiety and depression have hit record highs among young Americans, and the surgeon general has described a youth mental health crisis. Of all of Dr. Fauci’s legacies, this might be the gravest.
On Research:
Dr. Fauci let basic research questions about the nature of the Covid-19 virus go unanswered. Somehow, despite the NIH’s more than $45 billion budget, only 2 percent of grants went to basic Covid research while billions of federal money was invested in developing vaccines, according to a study conducted by my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I.
The federal government failed to conduct timely studies on the following: masks; the susceptibility of people in nursing homes; natural immunity; wastewater data; vaccine-induced heart injury in young people; and the optimal interval between the first two vaccine doses.
In short, Dr. Fauci didn’t deliver the basic research we needed so that public policy would be shaped by the best science. Because policymakers lacked good evidence to support their dictates, political opinions filled the void. So Covid-19 became a highly politicized health emergency—to all of our detriment.
On Natural Immunity:
One of the most inexplicable decisions by Dr. Fauci and his team was to ignore natural immunity—that is, the immune response generated by contracting Covid-19. As the evidence mounted that having had the virus was as good as—perhaps even better than—a vaccine, Dr. Fauci and his circle ignored it.
When Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked Dr. Fauci in the Fall of 2021 on CNN: “As we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time, people say I already had Covid, I’m protected, and now the study says even more protected than the vaccine alone. How do you make the case to them?” Dr. Fauci answered: “I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that.”
Hundreds of studies have now shown that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and that the level of protection vaccines have against severe disease is at the same level of natural immunity alone.
But Dr. Fauci didn’t talk about it.
Americans had circulating antibodies against the virus, but they were antibodies that Dr. Fauci seemed to ignore. The upshot was that thousands of Americans lost their jobs for their choice not to get vaccinated. Some of those Americans were nurses, pilots, truck drivers, and dock workers central to the American supply chain of food, medication, and other essential products. This summer, more than 60,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers who refused the Covid-19 vaccine were not allowed to participate in their military duties and lost pay and benefits. All of these people should have their jobs reinstated.
On Dissent:
Any physician who has met Dr. Fauci will agree that he is one of the kindest, most charming human beings you will ever meet. That’s why it was so jarring to witness the way that he and Dr. Francis Collins, his close friend and former director of the NIH, denigrated dissent on Covid-19.
Just ask the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—the open letter published in October 2020 that called for focused protection of the most vulnerable instead of blanket shutdowns of schools and businesses. It was authored by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then of Harvard, and it was signed by tens of thousands of doctors and scientists.
Drs. Fauci and Collins never talked to these prominent authors to discuss their differing points of view. Instead, they criticized them.
Four days after the Great Barrington Declaration was published, Dr. Collins sent an email to Dr. Fauci in which he called the authors “fringe epidemiologists.” “There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “I don’t see anything like that on line yet—is it underway?” Dr. Fauci replied: “Francis: I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks this theory.” Soon after, big tech platforms like Facebook and Google followed suit, suppressing their ideas and falsely deeming them “misinformation.”
The ultimate irony is that federal officials are now endorsing many of the policies the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggested, insisting schools stay open and quietly ending isolation and quarantine requirements. In the end, Sweden, which adopted many principles in the Great Barrington Declaration, had roughly half the Covid deaths as Michigan, despite having the same population, percent of elderly, and climate.
If dissent had been welcomed from the start—which is what science demands—a lot of suffering could have been avoided.
On Science:
Here’s what Dr. Fauci and other public health authorities could have been saying from the start: We strive to provide you with the best information and recommendations, but in the face of an emergency we will surely make mistakes. We will sometimes change our minds. We may even reverse our guidance. But we will always own up to our mistakes, explain our policy changes and strive to do better. Instead, Dr. Fauci admitted to telling noble lies.
Covid brought us the concept of “The Science.” Dr. Fauci famously said last year: “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” But no person embodies science. To suggest as much betrays a cast of mind that is entirely at odds with science itself.
On Leadership:
George Washington was onto something when he decided to limit his presidency to two terms. New leaders don’t just avoid the risk of too much power concentrated in the hands of one person or group, they also bring new ideas. New perspectives are especially important to accelerating scientific inquiry by challenging deeply held assumptions. In his long tenure, Dr. Fauci made tremendous contributions, but during this crisis we needed someone at the top who took a broad view of how to fight a novel virus, and made recommendations based on weighing the direct and indirect consequences to society.
How to Regain Trust:
We now face the threat of a future pandemic in a country in which a large number of people no longer trust public health authorities. What happens when we have a novel, highly contagious, airborne virus with a much higher fatality rate than that of Covid-19?
We desperately need to rebuild public trust now. That begins by having public health officials apologize for being dogmatic in their pronouncements, when the correct answer should have been: “We don’t know.” One lesson we should all learn from Covid-19 is that we should not put our entire faith and trust in one physician.
Dr. Marty Makary is a public health expert, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the author of the bestselling book The Price We Pay.
His last piece for Common Sense was about top doctors and scientists at the NIH, FDA and CDC who are alarmed at the direction of those institutions. Read it here.
A bizarre string of events is unfolding at the American Historical Association (AHA). Last week, AHA president James H. Sweet published a column in the organization’s magazine on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing. According to Sweet, an unsettling number of academic historians have allowed their political views in the present to shape and distort their interpretations of the past.
Sweet offered a gentle criticism of the New York Times’s 1619 Project as evidence of this pattern. Many historians embraced the 1619 Project for its political messages despite substantive flaws of fact and interpretation in its content. Sweet thus asked: “As journalism, the project is powerful and effective, but is it history?”
Within moments of his column appearing online, all hell broke loose on Twitter.
Incensed at even the mildest suggestion that politicization is undermining the integrity of historical scholarship, the activist wing of the history profession showed up on the AHA’s thread and began demanding Sweet’s cancellation. Cate Denial, a professor of history at Knox College, led the charge with a widely-retweeted thread calling on colleagues to bombard the AHA’s Executive Board with emails protesting Sweet’s column. “We cannot let this fizzle,” she declared before posting a list of about 20 email addresses.
Other activist historians joined in, flooding the thread with profanity-laced attacks on Sweet’s race and gender as well as calls for his resignation over a disliked opinion column. The responses were almost universally devoid of any substance. None challenged Sweet’s argument in any meaningful way. It was sufficient enough for him to have harbored the “wrong” thoughts – to have questioned the scholarly rigor of activism-infused historical writing, and to have criticized the 1619 Project in even the mildest terms.
New York Times columnist and 1619 Project contributor Jamie Bouie jumped in, casually dismissing Sweet’s concerns over the politicization of scholarship with contemporary “social justice” issues. 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones retweeted the attacks on Sweet, even though she has previously invoked the “journalistic” and editorial nature of her project to shield it from scholarly criticism by historians.
Other activist historians such as the New School’s Claire Potter retorted that the 1619 Project was indeed scholarly history, insisting that “big chunks of it are written by professional, award-winning historians.” Sweet was therefore in the wrong to call it journalism, or to question its scholarly accuracy. Potter’s claims are deeply misleading. Only two of the 1619 Project’s twelve feature essays were written by historians, and neither of them are specialists in the crucial period between 1776-1865, when slavery was at its peak. The controversial parts of the 1619 Project were all written by opinion journalists such as Hannah-Jones, or non-experts writing well outside of their own competencies such as Matthew Desmond.
The frenzy further exposed the very same problems in the profession that Sweet’s essay cautioned against. David Austin Walsh, a historian at the University of Virginia, took issue with historians offering any public criticism of the 1619 Project’s flaws – no matter their validity – because those criticisms are “going to be weaponized by the right.” In Walsh’s hyperpoliticized worldview, historical accuracy is wholly subordinate to the political objectives of the project. Sweet’s sin in telling the truth about the 1619 Project’s defects was being “willfully blind to the predictable political consequences of [his] public interventions.” Any argument that does not advance a narrow band of far-left political activism is not only unfit for sharing – it must be suppressed.
Within hours of the AHA’s original tweet of Sweet’s article, the cancellation campaign was in full swing. Predictably, the AHA caved to the cancellers.
One day after the offending article went live, the AHA tweeted out a “public apology” from Sweet. It reads like a forced confession statement, acknowledging the “harm” and “damage” allegedly caused by simply raising questions about the politicization of scholarship toward overtly ideological activist ends. It did not matter that Sweet’s criticisms were mild and couched in plenty of nuance, or that they even came from a center-left perspective that also criticized conservative historians for politicizing the debate around gun rights. Sweet was guilty of pointing out that partisan political activism undermines scholarly rigor when the lines between the two blur, because the overwhelming majority of that activism inside the history profession currently comes from the political left. And for that, the very same activists extracted an obsequious apology letter. Its text, reproduced below, reads like a “struggle session” for academic wrongthink.
Sweet’s apology excited the activist wing of the profession, though it did little to placate their ire. The resignationdemands continued, because Sweet’s apology was “insincere” and because his argument would be used by the “wrong” people – i.e. anyone who dissents from a particular brand of progressive activist orthodoxy. Simply criticizing the 1619 Project would play into the tactics of “Right-wingers, Nazis, and other bad-faith actors” who could use Sweet’s commentary “in the service of white supremacism and misogyny” announced Kevin Gannon, a historian who’s primarily known for scolding other scholars on twitter when they deviate from the profession’s far-left orthodoxies.
In this branch of academia, it does not matter whether the 1619 Project was truthful or factually accurate. The only concerns are whether its narrative can be weaponized for a political cause or used to deflect scrutiny of the same. As is often the case in the pseudo-moralizing political crusades of academia, the loudest demands against Sweet also came from the least-productive academics – historians with thin CVs and little in the way of original scholarly research to their names, although they do maintain 24/7 Twitter feeds of progressive political commentary.
Lora Burnett, one of the more vocal cancellation crusaders after the initial article posted, scoffed at Sweet, announcing “this apology was basically, ‘sorry I made you sad but I’m still right.’” She continued: “lamenting ‘inartful expression’ is apparently easier than admitting to flawed argument, unsupported claims, and factually incorrect assertions.” Note that Burnett and the other detractors never bothered to explain how Sweet’s argument was flawed or unsupported. Nor did they attempt to pen a rebuttal, which could have produced a constructive dialogue about the role of political activism in shaping historical scholarship. It was sufficient to denounce him as guilty for holding the wrong opinions. No matter the apology that Sweet made, the campaign to eject him from the history profession’s markedly impolite company would continue.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world began to take notice of the bizarre spectacle playing out at the main professional organization for a major academic discipline. As criticisms mounted on the AHA’s twitter feed, the organization moved to shut down debate entirely. They locked their twitter account, and posted a message to members denouncing the public blowback as the product of “trolls” and “bad faith actors.”
Keep in mind that only 24 hours earlier, the AHA had no problem with hundreds of activist historians flooding their threads with actual harassing behavior by bad faith actors. It tolerated cancellation threats directed against its president, calls to flood the personal email accounts of its board with harassing messages and denunciations of Sweet, and dozens of profane, sexist, and personally degrading attacks on Sweet himself. There were no AHA denunciations of those “trolls” or their “appalling” behavior, and no statements calling for “civil discourse” while the activist Twitterstorian mobs flooded the original thread with obscenity-laced vitriol and ad hominem attacks on Sweet.
Sadly, this type of unprofessional belligerence is now the norm on History Twitter. It would never be tolerated from any other perspective than the far-left, but it is valorized in the profession as long as it serves that particular set of ideological objectives.
The final irony is that the AHA only shuttered its twitter feed from the public when it could no longer restrict the conversation to the activist mob calling for Sweet’s cancellation. It’s the same brand of intellectual closure that Sweet’s offending column warned against in its final passage: “When we foreshorten or shape history to justify rather than inform contemporary political positions, we not only undermine the discipline but threaten its very integrity.”
Phillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and Research and Education Director at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston).
Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College.
Magness’s work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specializations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. In addition to his scholarship, Magness’s popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
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