Legislation promoting U.S. energy independence from Russia has been blocked by House Democrats.
House Republicans introduced the “American Independence from Russian Energy Act” on Feb. 28, a measure meant to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, boost domestic oil and gas production, and prevent President Joe Biden’s executive branch agencies from halting energy leasing on federal land and water, among other provisions. Yet on March 1, the legislation was shot down in a 221–202 vote, almost entirely along partisan lines.
“Getting our pipelines expanded is huge,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee and a co-sponsor of the measure, told The Epoch Times. “We’re having to import Russian energy to the New England states because we don’t have pipelines that can carry Pennsylvania natural gas up there.”
U.S. crude oil imports from Russia more than doubled in 2021, rising to an average of 209,000 barrels per day from a daily average of roughly 76,000 per day barrels in 2020, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time on his choice to vote down the legislation.
Republicans on the floor voiced near-unanimous support for the measure, with Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) describing U.S. reliance on Russian oil and petroleum products as “unconscionable.”
By contrast, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Republicans “talk about energy independence, yet … are the ones who have consistently voted against and opposed green and renewable energy here at home, which is the fastest way to achieve real energy independence.”
The 220 Democrats who voted the legislation down were joined by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who said the measure could open up the northwest Florida coast to drilling, potentially impeding military testing and related missions that take place east of the Military Mission Line.
Westerman told The Epoch Times that Gaetz’s objection was a “totally illegitimate concern.”
“I don’t know where he got the misinformation, but it talks about the Western Gulf [of Mexico],” he said. “It is not going to allow drilling around Florida.”
A spokesperson for Gaetz explained the congressman’s concerns to The Epoch Times.
Although the bill doesn’t specifically authorize drilling near Gaetz’s district, it keeps the president and his cabinet from freezing the new drilling lease sales on federal land or water. Any withdrawal of those federal holdings from drilling would have to be authorized by Congress.
The spokesperson said this language could be used to undermine a September 2020 memorandum from then-President Donald Trump extending the drilling moratorium off Florida’s northwest coast until 2032.
“The Congressionally approved moratorium is set to expire in June of 2022,” the spokesperson said, referring to the original Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act that made the area off-limits for drilling.
“It would be foolish to respond to Russia’s aggression by rendering America less capable to defeat Russia or anyone else,” the spokesperson said. “Protecting the Gulf Test Range is in America’s best interest.”
The spokesperson told The Epoch Times that Gaetz is on record as favoring more U.S. energy production to undercut Russia, drawing attention to a passage in Gaetz’s 2020 book, “Firebrand”:
“Asia’s largest consumer of energy, China, is right next to Asia’s largest producer, Russia. They are building bridges to one another that could well imperil the free world.
“We can beat Russia and other fossil fuel foes just by keeping the price of oil perpetually low.”
Westerman, who said he supports an “all of the above” energy strategy that includes oil, gas, nuclear, solar, and wind, pointed out that greenhouse gas emissions fell during the Trump administration.
“I don’t think Putin gives a rip about environmental goals, or anybody’s economy other than his own,” he said.
The legislation instructs the secretary of the interior to immediately restart the oil and gas lease sales required by the Mineral Leasing Act, which Biden first froze through Executive Order 14008 in January 2021.
In addition, it specifically instructs the secretary to hold at least four oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nevada, and “any other state in which there is land available for oil and natural gas leasing under the [Mineral Leasing] Act.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to three key bureaus and agencies of the Interior Department involved in mining and drilling authorization—the Bureau of Land Management, the Ocean Energy Management Bureau, and the Office of Surface Reclamation and Enforcement—but didn’t receive a response by press time.
“Democrats blocking the Act yesterday from even being considered demonstrates how unserious they are about truly addressing the crisis in Ukraine,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a nonprofit energy industry association, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“We have the energy resources to starve Putin of revenue and lower prices for Americans if the president would just take action within his power now. For example, the government is holding up hundreds of federal permits in the Permian Basin, America’s most prolific oil region. Most are ready to go but are being held up for more climate change analysis.”
Representatives for the U.S. branch of Fridays for Future, the international climate movement started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the legislation by press time.
A Navy member gets a COVID-19 vaccine on Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., in a file image. (U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jackson Adkins via The Epoch Times)
By Zachary Stieber for EPOCH TIMES March 1, 2022
A federal appeals court on Feb. 28 rejected an attempt by President Joe Biden’s administration to partially lift a block on the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for a group of Navy SEALs.
A federal judge in January blocked the mandate’s enforcement for 35 Navy members, many of them SEALs, ruling that while the Navy had provided a process for adjudicating religious exemption applications, “by all accounts, it is theater.”
At the time of the ruling, the Navy had granted zero religious exemptions. As of Feb. 23, it had still granted none.
Nonetheless, officials asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to allow the military to take into account the unvaccinated status of the 35 members when making “deployment, assignment and other operational decisions.” They argued that “forcing the Navy to deploy plaintiffs while they are unvaccinated threatens the success of critical missions and needlessly endangers the health and safety of other service members.”
A three-judge panel on the court rejected the request, noting the discrepancy between how the branch has handled medical and religious exemption requests.
“The Navy has granted hundreds of medical exemptions from vaccination requirements, allowing those service members to seek medical waivers and become deployable. But it has not accommodated any religious objection to any vaccine in seven years, preventing those seeking such accommodations from even being considered for medical waivers,” the panel said.
Judges said there is apparently no template for approving requests, but there is a disapproval template form. And during the process, Navy officials sent memorandums to Vice Admiral John Nowell asking that he disapprove the exemption requests, even those based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The Navy has “has effectively stacked the deck against even those exemptions supported by Plaintiffs’ immediate commanding officers and military chaplains,” emphasizing the futility of pursuing exemptions, the panel said. Further, letting 35 unvaccinated members deploy wouldn’t seriously impede military function because over 5,000 other members are still on duty despite being unvaccinated, they added.
“Defendants have not demonstrated ‘paramount interests’ that justify vaccinating these 35 Plaintiffs against COVID-19 in violation of their religious beliefs,” the ruling stated.
The panel consisted of Judges Edith Jones, a Reagan nominee; Stuart Duncan, a Trump nominee; and Kurt Engelhardt, a Trump nominee.
Mike Berry, director of military affairs for First Liberty Institute, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the group was grateful for the ruling.
“The purge of religious service members is not just devastating to morale, but it harms America’s national security. It’s time for our military to honor its constitutional obligations and grant religious accommodations for service members with sincere religious objections to the vaccine,” Berry said in a statement.
The Navy declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, the George W. Bush nominee who entered the injunction, has yet to rule on a motion to widen the preliminary injunction to all Navy members seeking a religious exemption. He received arguments from both parties in February.
Hunter Biden attends his father Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Pool
By Zachary Stieber for Epoch Times February 26, 2022Updated: February 27, 2022
The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) says it can’t locate years of records on communications regarding agents guarding Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden was a Secret Service protectee from Jan. 29, 2009, to July 8, 2014, and traveled extensively during that time, including to Russia, China, and India, a congressional investigation found.
As part of the probe, which is ongoing, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have sought records from the Secret Service in the lawmakers’ roles as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, respectively.
The Secret Service provided 261 heavily redacted pages (pdf) concerning Hunter Biden’s travel, but didn’t provide any records from 2010, 2011, or 2013.
“The USSS’s lack of communications during these years raises questions given that USSS travel records show that Hunter Biden made trips to China and other destinations around the world, including, Russia, Italy, Spain, and Mexico,” Grassley and Johnson wrote in a letter to USSS Director James Murray in January.
Murray responded in a letter dated Feb. 14 that was obtained by The Epoch Times.
He said a search for the records “did not yield communications for the years 2010, 2011, or 2013.”
The USSS and an attorney for Hunter Biden didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Murray said the Secret Service and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, “remain committed to working with Congress to meet its oversight responsibilities and be responsive to requests for information.”
Chris Farrell, director of investigations and research for Judicial Watch, told The Epoch Times that it’s “highly improbable” that the USSS lost the records in question.
“I would not be surprised if there was political pressure on the service to withhold the records because it would be politically damaging to President Biden,” Farrell said.
Judicial Watch, one of the most prolific record-seeking nonprofits, has also sought Hunter Biden’s travel records from the Secret Service and obtained some of them through a Freedom of Information Act request. Those records showed the countries and territories that he visited while under the agency’s protection.
The records the senators and Judicial Watch are now seeking would likely shed more light on the younger Biden’s actions during that period of time, according to Farrell.
Both Judicial Watch and Sens. Grassley and Johnson say that Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s position as vice president to benefit himself personally, even conducting business while on trips with his father.
“Past performance doesn’t always guarantee exact reproduction or the same details, but I think it’s reasonable, given the pattern and practice, that we would see more of the same—lots of instances where Hunter was traveling with his father and essentially leveraging his father’s position as vice president for his own personal business benefit,” Farrell said.
Judicial Watch could file a lawsuit over the records.
Hunter Biden, who’s currently being investigated by a U.S. prosecutor, and Joe Biden have denied any wrongdoing.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in late 2021 that she wouldn’t answer questions about Hunter Biden because he’s “not an employee of the federal government.”
Now the shoe is on the other foot. Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
Stop the gerrymandering lies. RCP recently did an article where former governor Christie pointed out what gerrymandering looks like from the left. A few years back I pointed out how gerrymandering was done to create phony minority districts. A few blacks here, a few browns there, and you have a gerrymandering minority district.
New York’s new district lines, signed off by the Democratic legislature and governor, are so comically contorted they’ve generated jokes and criticism from the right to the far left. The shape of Rep. Jerry Nadler’s newly crafted district – New York’s 10th – is downright serpentine, so much so that it was quickly dubbed the “jerrymander,” which brings this issue back to its historic roots
The Atlantic put it this way: “[The redrawn district] slices down the west side of Manhattan, takes a ferry ride across the East River, cuts a horseshoe-shaped path through a half dozen neighborhoods on its way to Prospect Park, then wraps around a cemetery containing the earthly remains of Boss Tweed and Horace Greeley before swallowing a huge section of central and south Brooklyn.”
Nadler’s new district is the most egregious example, but there are plenty of others across the Empire State. And some Democrats argue that some district lines in New York are drawn to protect moderate Democratic incumbents with others gaming the systems against Republicans. That is debatable, but regardless, a “jerrymandered” district like Nadler’s isn’t a good look for a party that has railed against GOP gerrymandering as a crime against the Constitution in places like Ohio.
The Princeton group labeled the New York map as particularly egregious; noted that new lines in Illinois and Maryland have benefited Democrats. The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman has given a recent edge to Democrats in the great gerrymandering sweepstakes of 2020.
“For the first time, Dems have taken the lead on @CookPolitical’s 2022 redistricting scorecard,” Wasserman tweeted in early Feb. “After favorable developments in NY, AL, PA et. al., they’re on track to net 2-3 seats from new maps vs. old ones.”
Both sides are raising millions of dollars for their redistricting legal battles. A CNBC report last week, citing internal GOP fundraising invitations, said Republican “megadonors” want to raise at least $3 million to fight the New York maps alone. The report didn’t mention that the NDRC has raised $10 million since 2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Media Accountability Project LLC d/b/a “TMAP” is a Nevada Limited Liability Company organized to assist Kyle Rittenhouse with legal costs associated with holding the media accountable for publishing inaccurate and defamatory statements. In addition, The Media Accountability Project was established to promote fair and accurate reporting across all journalistic mediums.
We see that another person will be taking on the media. The odds are against him and he most likely will not prevail in many of the lawsuits. But the good news is that he will force many from the left to defend themselves in court. Remember the Kentucky Hero Nicholas Sandmann? CNN, The Washington Post and NBC News all made settlements with Sandmann so far.
Kyle Rittenhouse went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program to announce that he’s launching a “Media Accountability Project” to make sure no one experiences the grief he endured after shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.
The Capitol Police have issued a statement saying that they are upping security around DC ahead of truck convoys expected to arrive in the city around the time of Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address.
The State of the Union is scheduled to take place on March 1.
The department said that they are coordinating with other agencies, including the Secret Service and National Guard.
“Law enforcement agencies across the National Capital Region are aware of plans for a series of truck convoys arriving in Washington, DC around the time of the State of the Union. As with any demonstration, the USCP will facilitate lawful First Amendment activity,” Capitol Police said in a statement on Friday.
“The USCP is closely coordinating with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Park Police, the United States Secret Service and other allied agencies to include the DC National Guard,” the statement continued.
The department “has received reports of truck drivers potentially planning to block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates. The convoy will potentially begin in California early as mid-February, potentially impacting the Super Bowl scheduled for 13 February and the State of the Union address scheduled for 1 March,” according to a memo obtained by The Hill on Feb. 9.
According to a recent report on Newsmax, the protest against COVID-19 mandates is scheduled to begin before the end of the month — but the exact start date was not provided.
The organizers claim that they have 1,000 truckers ready to participate “right out the gate,” but that it will likely grow as it moves from California to DC.
“I think you’re going to see it grow as we move across the country,” organizer Brian Brase said. “Initially, we’ve projected potentially a little over a thousand trucks right out the gate to start.”
Canada aggressively cracked down on the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa this week, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act.
On Thursday, Ottawa Police arrested two of the main organizers. According to the Freedom Convoy Twitter account, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been charged with “counseling to commit mischief.” Barber is facing an additional charge of “counseling to commit obstruction.”
The following day, Friday, the department moved in with full-scale violent mass arrests.
CDC and Johns Hopkins studies show strength and duration of natural immunity protection
Two newly released studies show the power of natural immunity following recovery from COVID-19 sickness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says “previous SARS-CoV-2 infection also confers protection against severe outcomes in the event of reinfection.” Johns Hopkins found that natural immunity developed from prior variants reduced the risk of infection with the Omicron variant.
Natural immunity was six times stronger during the Delta wave than vaccination, according to one news report about the CDC study. The report published Jan. 19 analyzed COVID outcome data from New York and California, which make up about one in six of the nation’s total COVID deaths. “Whereas French and Israeli population-based studies noted waning protection from previous infection, this was not apparent in the results from this or other large U.K. and U.S. studies,” the CDC said.
Dr. Benjamin Silk of the CDC told the media last week, “Before the Delta variant, COVID-19 vaccination resulted in better protection against a subsequent infection than surviving a previous infection.”
“When looking at the summer and the fall of 2021, when Delta became the dominant in this country, however, surviving a previous infection now provided greater protection against subsequent infection than vaccination,” he added.
Omicron has become the focus of the pandemic as Washington state and the nation enter the third year of battling multiple variants of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus. Until this past week, Omicron accounted for nearly all the new cases detected in the state. Early reports seemed to indicate it ignores both vaccine immunity and natural immunity.
Johns Hopkins Dr. Marty Makary says this is a pandemic of the non-immune. A new Johns Hopkins study shows natural immunity following recovery from COVID sickness is stronger and lasts longer than vaccine immunity. Tweet by Marty Makary
Clark County Public Health reports 72,239 total cases since the pandemic began. This means all those who have recovered now have natural immunity and protection. The two new natural immunity studies should boost public discussion regarding vaccine mandates by Gov. Jay Inslee.
This impacts citizen discussions about children in schools with or without vaccines. It also impacts the mini initiative petition the Clark County Council will consider. Should there be mandates when natural immunity provides protection as good if not better than vaccines alone?
The new CDC report was concluded before Omicron arrived on the scene. “After two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear,” writes Dr. Marty Makary. He is a surgeon and public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
Last week, the CDC released data which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing COVID infection compared with vaccination, according to Makary.
One of the arguments that public health officials have used to discount natural immunity, is they claim they don’t know how long it lasts. Makary noted the U.S. is one of the few countries that ignores natural immunity. The NIH has $42 billion in resources, but has refused to study it.
“You could do the study with about 100 people,” Makary told Brian Kilmeade. “You just invite people who were infected in New York two years ago and test their blood.”
Dr. Makary and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins therefore did their own study. “We found that among 295 unvaccinated people who previously had COVID, antibodies were present in 99.9 percent of them up to nearly two years after infection. We also found that natural immunity developed from prior variants reduced the risk of infection with the Omicron variant,” he reports.
“We found that immunity was strong, nearly two years out from the infection,”he said. “So it is now settled science. Natural immunity is durable and effective for as long as the infection has been around.”
Omicron is likely to go through the entire U.S. population. Makary noted that Dr. Fauci said everybody will get it. “If Omicron is nature’s vaccine for those who have not had access to or been eligible for vaccine, what are we doing immunizing those already immune?” A booster shot offers only a modest and temporary benefit.
The World Health Organization reported natural immunity
following recovery from COVID-19 sickness is more robust and
longer lasting than vaccine immunity. The WHO study showed
cellular immunity elicited by natural infection also targets
other viral proteins, which last across multiple variants
rather than targeting just the spike protein.
Graphic courtesy of World Health Organization
Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he believes about half of the U.S. population will be infected with Omicron during the next three months, with most cases being asymptomatic.
The CDC found COVID-19 rates among the vaccinated with no previous infection were 6.2 times lower in California and 4.5 times lower in New York than among the unvaccinated with no previous infection.
However, among the unvaccinated with a previous infection, the COVID-19 rate was 29 times lower in California and 14.7 times lower in New York.
The individuals most protected against infection were those who had previously had COVID-19 and were also vaccinated. Their infection rate was 32.5 times lower in California and 19.8 times lower in New York.
The CDC study and the Johns Hopkins study confirm what more than 100 other studies on natural immunity have found, Makary emphasized: “The immune system works,” he said. The largest of these studies, from Israel, found that natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic illness.
Last September, Heidi Wetzler highlighted doctors from the St. Elizabeth Healthcare System in Ohio submitted a compelling letter to their administration logically and completely outlining their concerns with vaccine mandates. Their very first point states that “Natural immunity is at least equal to and likely superior to vaccine immunity, yet this has not been a part of the discussion for unclear reasons. A majority of healthcare providers in our system are declining the vaccine due to prior infection and already having sufficient immunity to COVID-19.”
Wetzler shared those who had SARS-CoV-1 in 2002-2003 were still found to be immune 17 years later, and those who survived the influenza pandemic of 1918 were still immune to the H1N1 outbreak in 2009-2010 a stunning 92 years later.
Researchers followed more than 52,000 Cleveland Clinic employees for five months in 2021. More than 1,300 of those employees already had a documented COVID infection and did not get vaccinated.
The study released last June, found none of them were re-infected during the five months they were monitored. They concluded those with laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID infection are unlikely to benefit from vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.
The orange line corresponds to people who’ve been previously
infected but not vaccinated; the yellow line to those who’ve
been previously infected and vaccinated; and the green line to
those who’ve been vaccinated but not previously infected. The
y-axis gives the percentage reduction in the number of
infections, compared to those who haven’t been vaccinated or
previously infected. For example, a value of 90% means there
would be only 10 infections for every 100 in the comparison
group. The x-axis gives the number of days since the relevant
event.
Graphic courtesy of Danish Study — Statens Serum Institute
A Danish study published in December confirms that natural immunity protects better against infection than the vaccines. It shows vaccine-induced immunity wanes rapidly, beginning a few weeks after vaccination. At the five-month mark, protection is well below 50 percent. Natural immunity, by contrast, is robust: a full year after infection, protection is still above 70 percent.
The study shows hybrid immunity – conferred by the combination of vaccination and previous infection – is slightly better than natural immunity. However, the difference is small compared to that between natural and vaccine-induced immunity.
“While those who’ve already had Covid should be perfectly free to get vaccinated, there’s no obvious need for them to do so,” said Noah Carl of The Daily Sceptic. “The tricky part may be getting this message through to politicians.”
A May 2021 statement from the World Health Organization made the following points.
Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99 percent of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies.
The strength and duration of the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are not completely understood and currently available data suggests that it varies by age and the severity of symptoms. Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months). (Emphasis added)
Some variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses with key changes in the spike protein have a reduced susceptibility to neutralization by antibodies in the blood. While neutralizing antibodies mainly target the spike protein, cellular immunity elicited by natural infection also target other viral proteins, which tend to be more conserved across variants than the spike protein. (Emphasis added)
The ability of emerging virus variants (variants of interest and variants of concern) to evade immune responses is under investigation by researchers around the world.
“Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do. They used the wrong starting hypothesis, ignored contrary preliminary data, and dug in as more evidence emerged that called their position into question,” Makary writes in his column.
“Many clinicians who talk to other physicians nationwide have long observed that we don’t see reinfected patients end up on a ventilator or die from Covid, with rare exceptions who almost always have immune disorders.”
He was asked if there was a variation in the strength of the immunity in the Johns Hopkins study. According to Makary, “99 percent of these subjects we studied had antibody levels that were almost as effective and consistent as they had in the earliest time of their recovery,” he said.
Essentially 100 percent of new infections now are Omicron, he noted. The data shows it is less dangerous than influenza, according to Makary.
A 3.8 percent increase in protection
Kilmeade asked if you were vaccinated, and then you had COVID or you got the virus and then got vaccinated, does that double your immunity?
“It increases it by 3.8 percent,” Makary responded. “So hybrid immunity is more effective. But remember, the vaccine gives you almost a sugar high of antibodies that will wear off in terms of its protection against getting the infection. Your protection against hospitalization and severe disease is still solid with vaccinated or natural immunity.”
“We’re really not seeing new vaccinations at this point,” he said. Makary believes people are so hardened by what they see as excessive government policies, they’re probably not going to get vaccinated. Chances are, they have natural immunity.
He also mentioned that “no healthy child has ever died of COVID that we know of.”
In South Africa, where officials first sounded the alarm about Omicron, the government in December eased protocols. They are betting that previous encounters with the virus have given the population enough immunity to prevent significant levels of severe illness. The Omicron wave there subsided quickly with modest hospitalizations. Scientists think one reason is that so many people — close to 80 percent — had previously been infected by earlier variants.
CATO
Last fall the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an emergency temporary standard (ETS) requiring businesses with 100 or more employees to enforce a vaccination‐or‐testing regime. That has since been overruled by the Supreme Court..
The CATO Institute weighed in, including the following.
Universal vaccine mandates are irrational in ignoring naturally acquired immunity from infection and recovery, which has come to be referred to as “natural immunity” in public discussion. This single‐minded focus on vaccination as the exclusive means to acquiring immunity is largely novel.
Contrary to conventional belief, states typically do not have “vaccine” requirements for children to attend school or any other purpose; they require evidence of immunity to certain viruses, whether through serological testing that evidences the presence of relevant protective antibodies or evidence of prior history “diagnosed or verified by a health care provider.”
Virtually all countries in the Western world that impose some form of vaccine passport or mandate recognize natural immunity to Covid as qualifying for at least six months post‐recovery.
If OSHA had reviewed the medical and scientific literature regarding the relative protective efficacy of natural immunity compared to vaccination, it is unlikely that the agency would be successful in establishing a factual basis for forced vaccination of Covid‐recovered individuals. Given the trivial — if any — benefit to either the individual or the public from compelled vaccination of Covid‐recovered individuals, that evidence of elevated adverse effects requires an especially high standard of proof by regulators to overcome.
Fighting for those terminated
Makary also spoke about those who have been terminated over refusal to get vaccinated. “By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those least likely to infect others,” he said. “It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology.”
He writes in The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid that “Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated.”
“It’s time to reinstate American workers who were fired under the vaccine mandate, for a number of reasons,” he told Kilmeade. “Number one, it was unfair. Number two, we have therapeutics now that really mean no one should be dying of COVID. And number three, it turns out, many of them had natural immunity.”
“The risk of somebody who has natural immunity getting hospitalized is 3 per 10,000,” he said. “That’s identical to the risk of somebody with hybrid immunity, that is a vaccine and natural immunity. So getting the additional vaccination (booster) did nothing to change the numbers of hospitalization. That’s the honest data.”
“When employers fired workers with natural immunity, they got rid of the workers least likely to spread the infection,” he said. “That’s the great irony. The data are now in. It’s clear.”
Makary noted a disconnect in numbers being reported by public health officials. A California study of Omicron cases found only one death among over 52,000 cases. Yet the state is reporting much higher numbers of COVID deaths.
Reported COVID-19 deaths in California have begun to rise
rather quickly during the Omicron wave of the pandemic, yet
remain far below peak levels reached a year ago.
Graphic courtesy San Jose Mercury News
Termination Stupidity
Makary mentioned COVID-19 case numbers showing a steep decline for the past two weeks. In some parts of the country the virus is still peaking and hospitals are going to be strained. The hospitals are not necessarily strained from the influx of patients alone, he noted. “We normally have a massive influx of patients every winter, from a number of respiratory pathogens,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a bad flu season.”
“The difference is this time, we’ve got a massive staffing shortage,” Makary said. “One in five workers in health care have left. If you look at what happened at Washington State, they fired 55 workers from this hospital system called Multicare. They were so short staffed, they told people who tested positive who were working, even if you have COVID come back into work. Even if you have symptoms, we are that short staffed. That’s the problem with the staffing crisis that people don’t know about.”
According to an internal memo dated Jan. 6, MultiCare hospitals in the Puget Sound area moved into “crisis levels of staffing.” The impetus for the move was the rise in hospital visits, though not all due to COVID.
Consequently, the hospitals modified their return-to-work process, ordering staff “to work even if they are experiencing mild symptoms but are improving.” But a MultiCare staffer claimed that unless a staffer has a fever, “they want us coming in.” COVID-positive staffers are not required to disclose their status to patients or coworkers.
Makary believes we’ve got to reinstate all these workers. He noted that 50 to 60 percent of all truck drivers are not vaccinated. We have got to get the country moving, including the supply chain he said.
“People don’t just die of viral replication,” he said. “They die of hopelessness, poverty, and all kinds of substance abuse and mental problems. We’ve been blowing that data off. Those soldiers who were dishonorably discharged need to immediately be reinstated with their rank and back compensation, including restoring that period of lost pension pay.”
Omicron behaving like a different virus
Makary spoke to the reality of fighting Omicron. “It’s really not COVID; it’s acting and behaving like a different virus.” He pointed out there’s only been one death in 52,000 Omicron cases in the Kaiser Southern California study, which is lower than influenza.
Yet other news reports indicate Omicron deaths are increasing at a faster pace than during the Delta wave of COVID-19 last summer. As of Thursday, California was averaging 157 new COVID deaths a day. That’s more than last summer but less than a year ago.
Over the weekend, one case of natural immunity has been making headlines. A North Carolina man who said a hospital refused to carry out a kidney transplant because he’s unvaccinated against COVID-19. He is willing to “die free” rather than comply with their vaccine requirement. He is in need of a kidney transplant due to it operating at 4 percent, requiring him to get dialysis three times a week.
Chad Carswell said he’s had the coronavirus twice before and believes getting the vaccine should be a personal choice, not a requirement. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem said both the donor and the recipient must be vaccinated.
“The reason it is recommended is to provide protection for the patient. Transplant patients are at high risk for severe illness if they don’t have preexisting immunity prior to being transplanted,” the hospital said
Carswell has preexisting immunity. The CDC and Johns Hopkins studies show his immunity is likely more robust than if he’d been vaccinated three or more months ago.
As Noah Carl noted in his review of the Danish study, there’s no obvious need for people who have recovered from COVID to get vaccinated.
“The tricky part may be getting this message through to politicians.”
Canadian company Coastal Gaslink is building a 670 kilometres (416 miles) pipeline project across British Columbia to safely deliver natural gas across the Canadian province. Natural gas is one of the world’s cleanest and safest energy sources. It’s used for many purposes – to heat our homes and operate household appliances, to make crop fertilizer, fabrics, plastics and other everyday products.
The project will help heat Canadian homes in the long dark winters.
But pro-China leftists hate the idea and want the pipeline shut down.
On Thursday night, after Prime Minister Trudeau declared the Emergency Act earlier in the week, at least 20 violent far-left terrorists broke into the Coastal Gaslink company and caused millions of dollars in damage to costly equipment.
Violence has erupted at a Coastal GasLink pipeline work site in Northern B.C., leaving workers shaken and millions of dollars in damage.
Very early Thursday, just after midnight, Coastal GasLink security called RCMP for help, reporting it was under attack by about 20 people, some wielding axes.
RCMP Chief Supt. Warren Brown, commander for the north district, called the attack a “calculated and organized violent attack that left its victims shaken and a multi-million dollar path of destruction.”
Coastal GasLink said in a statement the attackers surrounded some of its workers in a “highly planned” and “unprovoked” assault near the Morice River drill pad site off the forest service road.
“In one of the most concerning acts, an attempt was made to set a vehicle on fire while workers were inside,” said the company in a statement. “The attackers also wielded axes, swinging them at vehicles and through a truck’s window. Flare guns were also fired at workers.”
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable. I feel like we’re on the run.”
By Steve Peoples/The Associated Press
(Smethport) — Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.
The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker. “I feel like we’re on the run.”
The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation’s political landscape.
The shifting climate helped Republicans limit Democratic gains in 2020 — the GOP actually gained House seats despite former President Donald Trump’s loss — and a year later, surging Republican rural support enabled Republicans to claim the Virginia governorship. A small but vocal group of party officials now fears the same trends will undermine Democratic candidates in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, states that will help decide the Senate majority in November, and the White House two years after that.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party continues to devote the vast majority of its energy, messaging and resources to voters in more populated urban and suburban areas.
In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading candidate in the state’s high-stakes Senate contest, insists his party can no longer afford to ignore rural voters. The former small-town mayor drove his black Dodge Ram pickup truck across five rural counties last weekend to face voters who almost never see statewide Democratic candidates.
Fetterman, wearing his signature hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts despite the freezing temperatures, described himself as a champion for “the forgotten, the marginalized and the left-behind places” as he addressed roughly 100 people inside a bingo hall in McKean County, a place Trump carried with 72% of the vote in 2020.
“These are the kind of places that matter just as much as any other place,” Fetterman said as the crowd cheered.
The Democratic Party’s struggle in rural America has been building for years. And it’s getting worse.
Barack Obama won 875 counties nationwide in his overwhelming 2008 victory. Twelve years later, Biden won only 527. The vast majority of those losses — 260 of the 348 counties — took place in rural counties, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
The worst losses were concentrated in the Midwest: 21 rural counties in Michigan flipped from Obama in 2008 to Trump in 2020; Democrats lost 28 rural counties in Minnesota, 32 in Wisconsin and a whopping 45 in Iowa. At the same time, recent Republican voter registration gains in swing states like Florida and North Carolina were fueled disproportionately by rural voters.
Biden overcame rural losses to beat Trump in 2020 because of gains in more populous Democratic counties. Perhaps because of his victory, some Democratic officials worry that party leaders do not appreciate the severity of the threat.
Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, who recently announced he would not seek reelection to Congress this fall, warns that the party is facing extinction in small-town America.
“It’s hard to sink lower than we are right now. You’re almost automatically a pariah in rural areas if you have a D after your name,” Cooper told The Associated Press.
Keith Srakocic / AP Photo
Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania U.S.senate seat in the 2022 primary election, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, center, talks with people during a campaign stop at the Mechanistic Brewery, in Clarion, Pa., Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022.
Even if Democrats continue to eke out victories by piling up urban and suburban votes, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota fears her party will have “unstable majorities” if they cannot stop the bleeding in rural areas.
“Democrats have the House, they have the Senate, the presidency, but it’s an unstable majority. By that, I mean, the narrowest kind, making it difficult to advance ideas and build coalitions,” said Heitkamp, who now heads the One Country Project, which is focused on engaging rural voters.
She criticized her party’s go-to strategy for reaching rural voters: focusing on farmers and vowing to improve high-speed internet. At the same time, she said Democrats are hurting themselves by not speaking out more forcefully against far-left positions that alienate rural voters, such as the push to “defund the police.”
While only a handful of Democrats in Congress support stripping such money from police departments, for example, conservative media popular in rural communities — particularly Fox News — amplifies such positions.
“We’re letting Republicans use the language of the far left to define the Democratic Party, and we can’t do that,” Heitkamp said. “The trend lines in rural America are very, very bad. … Now, the brand is so toxic that people who are Democrats, the ones left, aren’t fighting for the party.”
To help win back rural voters, the Democratic National Committee has tapped Kylie Oversen, a former North Dakota state legislator, to work with rural organizers and state party rural caucuses as the chair of the national committee’s rural council. The DNC also says it’s sharing resources with people on the ground in rural areas to help improve training, recruiting and organizing.
So far, at least, those resources are not making life any easier for Democrats in northwestern Pennsylvania.
At one of Fetterman’s weekend stops in rural Clarion, a group of voters said they’ve been effectively ostracized by their community — and even family members, in some cases — for being Democrats. One woman brings her political signs inside at night so they aren’t vandalized or stolen.
Keith Srakocic / AP Photo
Eugenia Barboza, 22, talks about being a college student and politics while living in a small town, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. in Clarion, Pa. The Democratic Party’s brand is so toxic in some parts of rural America that liberals are removing bumper stickers and refusing to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly.
“You have to be careful around here,” said Barbara Speer, 68, a retired sixth grade teacher.
Nearby, Michelle’s Cafe on Clarion’s main street is one of the few gathering points for local Democrats. A sign on the door proclaims support for Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights and other progressive priorities.
But the cafe owner, 33-year-old Kaitlyn Nevel, isn’t comfortable sharing her political affiliation when asked.
“I would rather not say, just because it’s a small town,” she said.
One patron, 22-year-old college student Eugenia Barboza, said the cafe is one of the few places in town she feels safe as a Latina immigrant. Just down the road, she said, a caravan of Trump supporters met up to drive to the deadly protests in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Barboza said she’s grateful that Democrats like Fetterman are willing to come to rural areas, but she isn’t hopeful that it’ll change much.
“It would take a lot more than just him,” she said. “It would take years and years and years.”
Well gee, they brought it on themselves, didn’t they?
In this still image from undercover video footage, Ryan Cole, an executive officer at the Food and Drug Administration, speaks about vaccines. (Courtesy of Project Veritas)
By Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times February 17, 2022
An executive officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a newly released video that President Joe Biden’s administration plans to push annual COVID-19 vaccine shots.
Christopher Cole, executive officer of the medical countermeasures initiative at the FDA, made the comments to the journalism group Project Veritas.
“Biden wants to inoculate as many people as possible,” Cole told an undercover reporter with the group. “You’ll have to get an annual shot. I mean, it hasn’t been formally announced yet because they don’t want to rile everyone up,” he said.
Right now, all Americans 5 and older are advised to get a two-dose primary regimen of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. All Americans 12 or older are also advised to get at least one booster dose five months after their second shot.
Cole said that drug, food, and vaccine companies “pay us hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire and keep the reviewers to approve their products.”
He also said that annual shots would become “a recurring fountain of revenue” for the vaccine makers, referring to them as Big Pharma.
“It might not be that much initially, but it’ll be recurring—if they can get every person requiring an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money going into their company,” he added.
Cole didn’t respond to requests for comment, including an email, a LinkedIn message, and a voicemail at his office.
An FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email, “The person purportedly in the video does not work on vaccine matters and does not represent the views of the FDA.” The spokesperson didn’t respond to a followup question.
Cole later told Project Veritas that he is a manager in an office of the FDA that does not work on vaccines but that does help “oversee the approval of the COVID vaccines for emergency approval.”
Cole said his comments about having to get a COVID-19 vaccine annually was a comparison to how many Americans get a flu shot every year.
He also confirmed that he believes the FDA will ultimately grant emergency authorization for at least one vaccine for toddlers—the FDA delayed its decision on that front on Feb. 11—and that he is not in communication with the president, but “from what he’s said, he probably wants to inoculate more people than not.”
Cole said he was on a date when he made the remarks.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment and White House press secretary Jen Psaki didn’t address the matter during a briefing on Wednesday.
Biden and his administration have pushed virtually every American to get vaccinated, asserting its the best protection against COVID-19. They’ve also downplayed natural immunity, or protection enjoyed by people who recover from COVID-19, drawing criticism from some experts.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped create the technology the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are built on, described the Project Veritas video as a “smoking gun.”
“What we have is an agency that has been completely distorted by the huge amounts of capital that await all their employees once they leave their agency,” he said on Steve Bannon’s show. “They have a strong incentive to behave in these ways, to do whatever’s necessary to comport with the interests of Big Pharma, and now you’ve got a smoking gun, thanks to Project Veritas.”
Canadian company 
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable. I feel like we’re on the run.”
