WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: A large group of pro-Trump protesters stand on the East steps of the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
The latest report by Project Veritas is raising questions about possible collusion between the mainstream media and government agencies to discredit Donald Trump and Republican voters. A new investigation by the non-profit journalism enterprise revealed mainstream media knew that FBI informants were inside the capitol during the January 6 protest.
The latest expose features confessions by Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg who has covered the capitol protest as a “matter on national security.” However, Rosenberg now admits the entire January 6 narrative was greatly exaggerated or even made up.
Over the past year, Rosenberg has written stories painting the capitol protest as a pre-mediated conspiracy by Donald Trump and friends to “subvert” American democracy. For example, on February 1 last year his article claims “a lie the former president had been grooming for years overwhelmed the Republican Party and stoked the assault on the capitol.” However now Rosenberg says nobody was in danger during that protest, including mainstream media reporters who went inside the capitol.
The New York Times reporter also spoke about FBI presence at the January 6 rally, which in the past raised questions by Republican lawmakers. In particular, Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have voiced concerns the breach of U.S. Capitol could be a ploy to discredit Republican voters.
Meanwhile, Rosenberg appeared to suggest the New York Times editorial stance on the matter is shifting towards downplaying those events as if it’s no big deal. He went on to suggest slanted January 6 coverage is only part of a greater narrative aimed at attacking and discrediting Donald Trump. This includes attacks on Trump before the 2016 election, during his time in office and beyond.
Rosenberg’s confessions suggest mainstream media is presenting wishful thinking of its writers as factual news, which it is not. Meanwhile, potential efforts by federal agencies to manipulate public opinion may pose a greater concern moving forward.
By Mimi Nguyen Ly for Epoch Times March 12, 2022Updated: March 13, 2022
At least 12 missiles landed on targets in northern Iraq, hitting an area near a U.S. Consulate in the city of Erbil in the early hours of Sunday, the state news agency quoted the Directorate General of Counter Terrorism in Kurdistan as saying.
“Several missiles fell on the city of Erbil,” said governor Omid Khoshnaw, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) also reported. Erbil is the capital city of the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq.
“No victims or casualties after Erbil blasts,” Saman Barzanji, health minister in Iraq’s Kurdistan Province, was cited as saying.
A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government said there were no casualties. A U.S. State Department spokesperson called it an “outrageous attack” but said no Americans were hurt and there was no damage to U.S. government facilities in Erbil.
No flight interruptions have been reported at Erbil airport.
Footage posted on social media shows multiple explosions. The Epoch Times cannot independently verify the footage.
Sky News Arabia earlier reported that five long-range ballistic missiles targeted the site of a U.S. Consulate currently under construction there. It later reported that “12 ballistic missiles” were launched “from outside Iraq,” citing a statement from the counter-terrorism forces in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
According to the outlet, one of the missiles fell on the headquarters of the Kurdish satellite channel K24, which is affiliated with the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq , Masrour Barzani. The building is near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest attack.
“Seeing reports of Iran-backed attacks on the U.S. consulate in Iraq,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said on Twitter. “This aggression shows we should absolutely end all Iran Nuclear Deal negotiations now. We must also never buy Iranian oil.”
In the past, U.S. forces stationed at Erbil’s international airport complex have come under fire from rocket and drone attacks that U.S. officials blame on Iran-aligned militia groups. There have been no such attacks for several months.
The last time ballistic missiles were directed at U.S. forces was in January 2020 in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force (IRGC-QF), at Baghdad airport earlier that same month. There were no deaths, however, many U.S. service members suffered head injuries from the strike.
Fars News Agency, which is managed by the IRGC of Iran’s Islamist regime, appeared to link the missile attack to the killing of Soleimani.
“Missiles hit the ‘Israeli-American’ bases at 01:20 local time; ‘that’s not a coincidence’. IRGC-QF chief Soleimani was killed in #Iraq on 7Jan20—01:20 Iraq time. #Iran,” Fars News wrote in a Twitter post, per a translation via journalist Khosro Kalbasi.
Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, wrote on Twitter: “The Soleimani factor in the #Erbil attack tonight is important. Soleimani’s birthday was on March 11, pro-IRGC media are boasting the attack tonight occured at same time of his death at 1:20 AM, the revenge attack on 01/08/20 also occured at 1:20 AM.
“And there are reports the Fateh-110s were used tonight, which also made a cameo appearance in the Soleimani revenge attack on U.S. forces in #Iraq on 01/08/2020. Would note #Iran has also launched Fateh-110s before on #Iraq, e.g. in September 2018 on KDPI HQ in Koya.”
An Israeli air strike in Syria killed two IRGC members on March 7, Iranian state media reported earlier. The IRGC vowed to retaliate, it said.
Melanie Sun and Reuters contributed to this report.
This sounds suspicious, if only because NONE of the missiles hurt anyone:
“No victims or casualties after Erbil blasts,” Saman Barzanji, health minister in Iraq’s Kurdistan Province, was cited as saying.
Hmm. The comments on the original article consider it to be the work of third parties, possibly to create more ME tension, and/or another ME war. Certainly a possible explanation, given certain other factors we’ve seen before this.
A Texas federal judge on Friday ordered President Joe Biden to stop the mass release of illegal migrant children crossing the southern border into the country.
Judge Mark Pittman’s order prevents Biden from exempting minor migrants from Title 42. Title 42 is an immigration policy implemented by former President Donald Trump that allows U.S. immigration officials to expel immediately migrants who come to the southern border. Title 42 was implemented in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since the policy’s start in March 2020, the federal government has expelled more than 1.6 million migrants.
Biden previously declined to expel unaccompanied minor children under Title 42. Instead, he allowed the young migrants to enter the country, where they would be placed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ supervision. From there, they would be placed with sponsors in the United States, who are typically family members.
Here, the President has (arbitrarily) excepted COVID-19 positive unaccompanied alien children from Title 42 procedures—which were purposed with preventing the spread of COVID-19. As a result, border states such as Texas now uniquely bear the brunt of the ramifications. Yet, while policy decisions are beyond judicial review, those agency actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, . . . or otherwise not in accordance with law” will be set aside.
Pittman explained that the “ramifications” Texas deals with include strains on the state’s public school system and medical resources, and increased incarceration.
A record number of more than 122,000 unaccompanied minors arrived at the southern border during the fiscal year 2021.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the decision is a “win for Texas & children—loss for Biden & cartels!”
Huge win against Biden! Along w @America1stLegal & @IRLILaw, I sued the Admin for failing to use Title 42, contrib to massive wave of smuggling. Fed court just BLOCKED Biden from excepting alien minors from the Title 42 process. Win for Texas & children—loss for Biden & cartels!
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 5, 2022
America First Legal, led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, served as outside counsel for Texas as part of the lawsuit. Miller called the decision “a truly historic victory.”
We are honored beyond words to have partnered with Attorney General Ken Paxton and the State of Texas in our landmark lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s egregious decision to except ALL illegal alien minors traveling without adults (UAC) from Title 42—and to have just obtained a preliminary injunction. Biden’s decision to except UAC from Title 42, and instead mass resettle them in the United States, has led to the largest wave of criminal child smuggling in human history–and the flood of illegal alien teens and minors has drained the resources of our schools, hospitals, and communities while creating a new unimpeded recruiting pipeline for MS-13. This preliminary injunction orders the Biden Administration to halt their order categorically excepting unaccompanied alien minors from Title 42 repatriation. This is a truly historic victory, but we have a long, long, long way to go to end the Administration’s crusade to eradicate our sovereignty.
Friday’s decision is Texas’s latest successful effort to prevent Biden from implementing his radical immigration agenda. Texas previously stopped a 100-day deportation moratorium from being enforced last February. Additionally, the state got a federal judge to order Biden to continue Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, where asylum seekers are returned to Mexico to wait for their hearings.
The case is Texas v. Biden, No. 4:21-cv-0579-P in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
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.”
