Are red and blue America headed for a split? Lately, Dan Bongino has discussed the possibility on his daily podcast and radio show. Glenn Beck has mentioned it, too. It’s a focused topic of David Reaboi, whom Bongino cites. Reaboi suggests that a “national divorce” should be discussed. He sees a split more as a matter of when not if. The hope is for a civil, if not amicable, separation.
What may surprise readers is the convergence that’s happening about the need for a national divorce.
As the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia discovered in its recent polling and data analytics: “roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”
It’s conceivable that the percentage for a separation would be higher among Biden backers had Donald Trump won reelection. And the percentage lower among Trump-backers if the 2020 outcome was different. Nonetheless, the poll does reveal broadening agreement.
Why a civil divorce won’t happen — if a divorce comes at all — is that it fails to account for the opposition; that is, the hard left — Mark Levin’s aptly described “American Marxists” — who’d regard a friendly national divorce (or any divorce) as contrary to who and why they are.
This hard-left cohort is ascendant in the Democratic Party and among “progressives.” That’s been the case for a while. It’s they who would have to be reckoned with in any drive to separate the country.
There’s ample history, dating back to the Russian Revolution, that Marxist-Leninists (or variations, like Maoists and fascists) are never about subtraction. They’re about addition. They’re about power acquisition — often through violence. They crave domination. They seek to impose their wills on the unwilling. Need we look any further than Xi Jinping’s China today?
And, please, let’s not hear that American Marxists are cut from a different cloth. They’re unsurprisingly and drearily like Marxists elsewhere. It’s dangerous to be naïve about who we’re up against.
American Marxists hunger for control. They desire to expand their franchises. That isn’t just a matter of doctrine, it’s a matter of personality type. In fact, it can be argued that “controllers” create authoritarian and totalitarian models as a means of fulfilling their deepest needs.
But controllers are out there. They want to micromanage what you say, how you act, even what you think quietly in your own mind. It could be your boss, your spouse, or even your parent. You can’t be yourself around them. They insist on being your top priority and want undue influence over your life. They might push your buttons to get an emotional reaction out of you because they want to exploit it as weakness. They have no respect for you or your boundaries.
The left consists of controllers and followers. Leftist followers are people who gratefully cede control over their lives. They trade freedom for perceived security — and not just materially. They want liberation from the day-to-day struggle of thinking critically, making decisions, and taking responsibility for their lives.
In leftist constructs, followers are necessary but incidental. Power concentrates in elites. They decide fates.
Yes, too, there are cynics who catch rides on whatever belief system or doctrine that permits them to acquire status, wealth, and power, though their power-hunger doesn’t derive from a compulsion to rule lives but, instead, enrich themselves. Might that describe, in part, the would-be oligarchs who collaborate with and underwrite the Democratic Party and leftist causes?
The left, universally, insists on aligning society with their worldview and further insists that all submit, agree or not. Conformity to their norms is compulsory. Dissent is prohibited, and dissenters face cancellation, to use the modern parlance.
Cancellation, in its mildest forms, entails ostracization, loss of reputation, and loss of livelihood. “Milder” cancellation harkens back to the Nazis’ early treatment of Jews. Eerily, it’s being replicated by the left here now – except that anyone who dares run afoul woke culture risks being targeted.
Concentration camps and gulags are harsher forms of cancellation. Today, consider a million Uyghurs, China’s Muslim Turkic minority, many of whom are confined to “reeducation camps” and brutally treated. Ukrainians starved to death by Stalin were canceled by genocide. A war of conquest was Hitler’s attempt to cancel — aka, erase or subjugate — whole peoples deemed inferior. This was pursued for the benefit of the “Master Race.”
The left — the “vanguard” — isn’t much about splitting differences. It’s aggressive and seeks paramountcy over the United States, not just portions of the East Coast and the whole West Coast. The left doesn’t see itself as merely ruling the Democratic Party and blue America, but the country as a whole.
The left managed to depose President Trump, installing a declining, frail puppet in the White House. Its coalition stretches into schools, corporations, the mainstream media, big tech, pro sports, and the arts and entertainment industries. Via Democrats, the left secured longer-duration, freedom-crushing lockdowns in blue states. The left’s muscle — BLM and Antifa — stoked riots in cities. The U.S.-Mexican border is being dissolved.
Though congressional Democrats have been stymied, they doggedly push a flagrantly statist legislative agenda, which would end any chance at honest elections and kill our prosperous, free economy via the “Green New Deal.” The Constitution — and our rights enshrined therein — becomes a doormat should Democrats prevail.
So, the left is on a power trip. That’s not to suggest victory is in its grasp. Conceit — it overflows among leftists and their moneyed, connected, and credentialed allies — almost inevitably leads to hubris. There are hopeful signs an unraveling has begun.
They [leftists and fellow travelers] are not, moreover, the people that built this country. Those who built the country are from the folks de Tocqueville saw when he wrote “Democracy in America,” the independent, self-starting citizens that formed so many non-governmental, patriotic organizations for the betterment of all.
Those people, thankfully, and here’s the good part, have not gone away. The ideological war is not over. The Fat Lady hasn’t even begun to sing. She hasn’t opened her sheet music.
By all means, an amicable divorce is better than violent separation. Better if sober minds on both sides negotiated equitable terms. Better to say, “Goodbye” with handshakes than bayonets and bullets.
But history is abundant in its lessons about the left. It aims to seize, not surrender, in whatever sphere it operates. If a national divorce proves the goal, the left won’t be brought to the negotiating table through sweet reason and a desire to end years of intensifying divisions and conflicts. The left not only thrives on division and conflict, but it also instigates both. Read Marx, study Lenin.
And might it be premature that we patriots signal a willingness to cede portions of the nation to cohorts that are manifestly authoritarian in policy and governance… and who, inevitably, will grow their rule into a monstrous totalitarianism? Why surrender any portion of the country to forces that will only establish a hostile power on this continent?
Perhaps we should be bolder in our vision of America? Perhaps we should proclaim our commitment to the outright defeat of this leftist scourge and a restoration of liberty, a moral society, and honest government across this land — a restoration that will astound a watching world.
Inflation was up 5.4% year over year in September – the highest rate in 13 years!
Prices rose 0.4% in Sept, up from 0.3% in August.
Gas, food, and goods continue to be key drivers of inflation. Gas is up 25% under Joe Biden — the poor and middle class hurt the most.
BREAKING: Inflation was up 5.4% over last year in September – the highest rate in 13 years.
Prices rose 0.4% in Sept, up from 0.3% in August
Gas, food and goods continue to be key drivers of inflation. Used car prices fell slightly but remain 24% higher than last year. pic.twitter.com/8cN1eHaBvQ
So meat up 12% YTD. Gas 42%. But inflation is 5.4%? I guess everyone is vegan and drives electric cars. But then again if gas goes up doesn’t that mean energy going up? Lol. How long before you are paying just like for gas to charge up your tesla? Lies & deception 24/7.
The inflation rate rose to a 13-year high in September as rising costs for food and shelter pushed the rate up to 5.4 per cent.
Higher prices for food and shelter made up half of the increase in the overall rate, the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics said in a release. But the biggest individual category increase was energy, the cost of which has risen by almost 25 per cent in the past year.
Economists were expecting the number to come in at around 5.3 per cent, which would have been the highest rate since 2013. But the figure ended up being even higher.
Senators Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum have gathered thousands of signatures to support their petition to launch a grand jury investigation into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) methods of measuring COVID statistics.
The two Republican senators from Oregon submitted a petition addressed to Acting U.S. Attorney Scott E. Asphaug to demand an investigation, which was supported by 1,718 citizens of Oregon and 53,032 more Americans across the country.
According to The Epoch Times, the Republican senators in the letter expressed concerns on how the agencies measured and reported COVID vaccine adverse reactions, fatalities, and injuries. The lawmakers added that a whistleblower under sworn testimony revealed how the data reported in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) may have been underreported by a factor of up to five.
The Oregon senators argued that in diagnosing COVID using PCR tests, the CDC and the FDA’s setting of the cycle threshold, which is a test parameter, generated “false positives resulting in inflated numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.” Back in August 2020, Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina said that PCR tests with a higher threshold may detect not just live viruses but also its genetic fragments, which may cause a false positive. He suggested lowering the cycles to 30 or less.
Sen. Thatcher argued that the cycle threshold of 28 when testing vaccinated individuals is a low cut-off that would likely “eliminate false positive results and thereby reduce the number of vaccine ‘breakthrough’ cases.” The Oregon senators said they consulted a number of doctors, epidemiologists, and virologists with regards to COVID statistical reporting.
“Additionally, we are profoundly concerned that the scientific literature continues to provide empirical evidence that safe and effective treatments and management strategies for COVID infections exist but are not being made available to Americans most in need,” the letter from Sens. Thatcher and Linthicum read. The letter was also supported by Stand for Health Freedom (SHF), a non-profit organization that said the petition was submitted a month before public release to “protect those involved.”
In September, David Sorenson and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a doctor from New York who pushed hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment released “The Vaccine Death Report,” which claimed that “millions have died from COVID injections” around the world. The report also said that up to 500,000 people in the U.S. have suffered severe side effects after getting the COVID vaccine, including strokes, heart failure, brain disorders, convulsions and more.
“The data shows that we are currently witnessing the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world,” the doctors declared in the report. Statistics presented in the report were gathered from the VAERS.
The Epoch Times’ Adrian Norman tweeted earlier this month that “CDC numbers reported that among children 5-17 who had COVID-19, there was 1 death per 174,803 cases. Pfizer & Moderna trials w/ children showed 1 death per 1,000 vaccinated.” More follow up reports are needed to verify this claim.
(Star News Network) Author and Senior Editor at The Federalist Mollie Hemingway held nothing back in her forthcoming book “RIGGED,” detailing the irregularities in the 2020 election.
One chapter of that book is titled “Zuckerberg Should Be in Jail,” referencing Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg.
In that chapter, Hemingway hits back at Silicon Valley titans of industry, including Twitter, Google and Google-owned YouTube for using their immense power to sway the 2020 elections in favor of Democrats.
Here’s an excerpt from Hemingway’s book about Facebook’s censorship during election season:
Facebook once touted its ability to shut off 80 percent of the internet traffic to any link it deems misleading. When deciding whom to censor, Facebook relied on media ‘fact-checkers’ who consider themselves the opposition party. Biased journalists were given the power to scrub their rivals from the internet, thanks more to the legacy of their places of employment than their own work. This process of erroneous or slanted liberal media reports informing Facebook ‘fact checks’ played out through Trump’s entire presidency and reelection effort. It suppressed dozens of news stories in the public interest and helped get Biden over the finish line.
Hemingway tore into Google, too.
“It’s undeniable Google is rigging results on politically sensitive topics, and that the results of this are politically disadvantageous to conservatives,” Hemingway writes.
Citing studies conducted by Robert Epstein, whom Hemingway describes as a “politically liberal Harvard Ph.D.,” Hemingway exposes quantifiably just how much Silicon Valley intruded on the supposedly “free and fair” 2020 elections.
“In 2020, Epstein monitored Google results using over seven hundred volunteers in three swing states and concluded, ‘Google search results were strongly biased in favor of liberals and Democrats,’” Hemingway wrote. “‘This was not true on Bing or Yahoo…. The bottom line at the moment is that these manipulations, the ones that we’ve so far quantified, could easily have shifted at least six million votes in just one direction.’” (Emphasis added).
For more overt proof of political censorship in favor of Democrats, Hemingway pointed to Twitter’s direct censorship of former President Donald J. Trump.
Beginning in May of 2020, Hemingway explained that Twitter was conducting a sort of trial run at censoring the leader of the free world. That’s when it first began labeling Trump’s tweets as “misleading,” or disallowing users from interacting with Trump’s tweets based on dubious policies like “the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.”
Eventually, Twitter graduated to all-out censorship of Trump, and when its work was done and President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, it banned the 45th president from the platform forever.
“We must protect the jobs of Floridians and preserve the ability of Floridians to make their own decisions regrading what shots to take,” DeSantis wrote.
On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Department of Health is fining Leon County for violating the state’s ban on vaccine passports, and for firing employees who did not receive COVID-19 vaccinations.
In a tweet on Tuesday, DeSantis wrote, “no oner should lose their job because of COVID shots… We must protect the jobs of Floridians and preserve the ability of Floridians to make their own decisions regrading what shots to take.”
We must protect the jobs of Floridians and preserve the ability of Floridians to make their own decisions regarding what shots to take.
According to WCTV, the DOH notice of violation states that “the county is facing 714 counts for requiring employees to provide proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.”
An email from Governor DeSantis office stated that the county also fired 14 employees for not receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations.
“It is unacceptable that Leon County violated Florida law, infringed on current and former employees’ medical privacy, and fired loyal public servants because of their personal health decisions. Governor DeSantis will continue fighting for Floridians’ rights and the Florida Department of Health will continue to enforce the law,” a spokesperson for the governor said in a statement to WCTV on Tuesday.
The DOH is able to issue a $5,000 fine per person that is asked to show proof of vaccination under the state’s current COVID-19 rules.
Leon County reportedly issued its order for county employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in July, with a deadline to receive the proper shots by October 1, according to WCTV.
In September, County Administrator Vince Long said that Leon County’s mandate would hold up in court.
“We believe that requiring our employees as a condition of employment to become vaccinated is legal,” Long said. “It’s permissible. The EEOC agrees with us, the DOJ agrees with us, federal district courts agree with us, and we also believe that it’s not inconsistent with Florida law.”
The DOH has reportedly given Leon County 30 days to pay the fine.
(Christian Today) There are many challenges facing the UK Church but with the pandemic receding, there are also many opportunities, says the Rev Hugh Osgood.
The Free Churches Moderator was addressing hundreds of pastors and evangelists at the first of four Evangelism Summits being hosted across the UK by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Rev Osgood told participants at Tuesday’s summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that God had used the pandemic for good and that while there were “big challenges”, it was important that the Church “come at these things with a confidence”.
“Somehow in all that we’ve gone through, God is more interested in saying to us: actually, I’ve made the land more fruitful. Somehow that hard land is being broken up by what we’ve gone through. I don’t know how and I don’t understand why, but I want to go out with a new confidence to plant seed in that soil,” he said.
In a session on defending the Gospel, apologist Dr Amy-Orr Ewing warned that social media and AI algorithms were making it easier than ever for people to retreat into their own “echo chambers” instead of engaging with different ideas.
She challenged pastors to “break through” the echo chambers of the current age, while also avoiding the temptation to retreat into echo chambers of their own.
“This is a massive challenge for reaching the next generation. We need to get smart and creative,” she said.
She also admitted it could be “wearying” to minister in the present spiritual climate, and that she was “deeply concerned” about the state of both the nation and the Church, and the “catastrophic confusion” around identity.
“I have never known a time where so many Christian leaders are so discouraged, and so I want to encourage you again today to ask that question: do I really believe in Jesus? Do I really believe the Gospel is Good News in our time? And ask Him to build and grow personal faith in us,” she said.
Dr Orr-Ewing said the challenge was to “defend and contend” for the Gospel in this present time, and speak the Good News of Jesus and every person being made in the image of God into the “vacuum of meaning” left by postmodernism.
“As we defend and contend for the Gospel, we need to [do this] in creative and personal ways outside of our own echo chambers,” she said.
The BGEA summits are free and will next be held in Liverpool on 14 October, Cardiff on 19 October, and London on 15 November.
Speaking to Christian Today about the Evangelism Summits, Rev Osgood said they were a reminder of the importance of face-to-face gatherings, and that it was “timely” to host the events now as the UK emerges from the pandemic.
“The pandemic was very disruptive and that means people are having to do some thinking about what could be done better. So there are some real opportunities,” he said.
Commenting on the challenges to evangelism in the UK, he said it was important that Christians engage positively in society.
“The Church needs to recover its confidence and that I think is the big challenge for evangelism,” he said.
“It’s so easy for the Church to blame how hard the ground is but I feel that, in some ways, the ground is softer now than it’s ever been.
“We need to be confident in the Gospel we proclaim – the cross, the work of the Spirit and to some extent the Church, that we can rise up and make a difference.
“The Church is too good at putting itself on the back foot when we could really step out and make a difference.
“We can’t blame the world and increased secularization because the early church was birthed in an unreceptive environment and yet it made an impact. The challenge for us is to make an impact.”
UK evangelist Roger Chilvers, who helped coordinate the BGEA summits, echoed the call for a more confident Church.
“In the past, we have been in a sense unwilling to upset people, and Covid has helped us to see that life is fragile and so we need to preach the centrality of the cross with clarity and boldness. We must get over this ’embarrassment’, if you like, about the cross,” he said.
His comments echoed an earlier session at the summit led by Dr Charles Price, who exhorted ministers to preach on the power of the cross.
“You and I need to ask in our own ministries: am I preaching the cross? Now, it’s foolishness to people and we’re embarrassed by that so we kind of hold back a bit. We want to preach nice things people will like but we’ve got to come back to the cross,” he said.
Despite the disruption caused by Covid, Chilvers was positive about the growth experienced by many churches during the pandemic and the way in which churches are using this time to think about how they can adapt to the post-Covid world.
“Now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, most churches are beginning to ask themselves: are we just going to go back to how we were before or is God telling us to do something different?” he said.
“The summits in these four cities are taking place to help churches think through not so much the nuts and bolts of how to do evangelism but the foundational aspects, like the centrality of the cross and discipleship and defending the Gospel.
“While Covid has had a negative effect on church life in many areas, there are also many churches that have grown very unexpectedly during Covid and I think that’s because not only the Church but society itself is beginning to ask ‘where are we going?’ and ‘what is life about?’.”
A federal judge in Texas issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against United Airlines on Wednesday, blocking the airline from imposing a vaccine mandate against any of its employees in a nationwide class-action lawsuit.
According to the judicial order, which could be the first of its kind in the country against a coronavirus vaccine mandate, United Airlines is prohibited from placing employees with religious and medical exemptions on unpaid leave until October 26 while litigation continues. The judge also prohibited the airline from denying any employee requests for religious or medical exemptions. Previously, the airline did not allow employees to apply for an exemption after August 31.
Earlier in the case, the airline agreed of its own accord to postpone its vaccine mandate until October 15 for employees with exemptions during litigation. The day before the October 8 hearing, however, United filed a partial motion to dismiss, alleging the court lacked jurisdiction over the claims in the lawsuit. In order to allow the court reasonable time to respond to the jurisdictional challenge and to rule in the evidentiary hearing for a preliminary injunction, which was reset for Wednesday, the judge issued the TRO.
United Airlines originally told its 67,000 U.S. employees they must be vaccinated against Chinese coronavirus (or secure an exemption) by September 27 or face termination. As the airline’s vaccine mandate stands, any employees with exemptions would still be considered employed but would be placed on unpaid leave and would lose their benefits for up to six years or until the airline deems pandemic conditions safe for unvaccinated employees to return, according to the complaint.
“It is unconscionable to force any person to undergo a medical treatment that they object to as a matter of faith,” said Ken Blackwell, formerly the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and currently with the American Constitutional Rights Union. “When so many other nations recognize that there is no medical reason for people with natural immunity to take a vaccine, it is essential that America lead the way to protect our citizens’ rights on that front also.”
The class action lawsuit, which powerhouse Washington, D.C. law firm Schaerr Jaffe filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in September, represents up to 2,000 United Airlines employees.
“The Court now concludes it is necessary to issue this Temporary Restraining Order to avoid risking irreparable injury and to maintain the status quo in this case pending the Court’s hearing and resolution of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction,” Pittman wrote, noting that his order is not a ruling on the actual legality of the vaccine mandate.
United Airlines Imposes Temporary N95 Mask Policy for Unvaccinated Employees
The surprising judicial order comes at the end of several tumultuous weeks for the company.
United Airlines instituted a potentially dangerous respirator mask mandate for unvaccinated employees just days after several employees filed the lawsuit alleging discrimination by the company concerning reasonable accommodations for religious and medical exemptions.
According to an internal memo obtained by Breitbart News, the airline has temporarily mandated that unvaccinated employees wear N-95 or KN95 respirator masks at all times, effective October 2, as it waits for “the outcome of the litigation” regarding its reasonable accommodation process. The company agreed to supply employees with the respirators if they could not obtain their own.
The memo continues in part:
…You must wear your mask at all times in all United locations, including outdoors and on aircraft (this includes for personal or business travel). You may remove your mask only when you are actively eating or drinking and you must put your mask back on in between bites and sips. To the extent possible, please only eat or drink outdoors or in rooms alone or when socially distanced from others. Failure to comply with this mask requirement is subject to disciplinary action as outlined in the mask policy in the Working Together Guidelines.
The policy includes strict guidance such as putting the respirator back on “in between bites and sips” — a step which arguably could lead to improperly trained employees repeatedly touching their masks, an action health experts advise against. Unvaccinated employees have also reportedly been isolated and bullied since the policy went into effect, sources told Breitbart News. Anyone who breaks the respirator policy could allegedly face termination.
“It’s been tense. You have the vaccinated — especially the junior vaccinated people happy about senior unvaccinated people, meaning their seniority is going to go up,” a United employee with knowledge of the situation told Breitbart News.
Life-Saving or Law-Breaking?
The airline’s temporary respirator mandate is quite significant given the company’s alleged breach of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations in instituting it.
According to OSHA guidelines, N95 masks are considered to be air purifying negative pressure demand respirators, meaning employers requiring workers to wear them must comply with the OSHA Respiratory Protection Program. Under the program, OSHA requires employers to take several precautions to guarantee employee safety. These methods include, but are not limited to, conducting medical evaluations to determine an employee’s ability to use a respirator, conducting fit tests, providing comprehensive training, providing maintenance and care for the respirators, implementing written policies, establishing procedures, and conducting written evaluations to ensure the respiratory program is being properly followed.
Several sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News they have not received any opportunities for medical evaluations, fit tests, or training before or since the policy was instituted — violating OSHA regulations. When properly worn, N95s and KN95 provide better protection than regular face masks against Chinese coronavirus. However, respirators, when improperly worn or worn for too long, can cause severe side effects and potential injury.
As a result, several employees have allegedly suffered health issues and have even been badly injured, according to a United Airlines employee with knowledge of the situation (Breitbart News intentionally has kept the identities of sources and those affected by the policy anonymous to protect them from retaliation):
Several alleged injuries resulting from improper respirator use include:
An agent with the company allegedly fainted, which resulted in a broken clavicle, a torn rotator cuff, and a torn meniscus.
A flight attendant allegedly fainted and fell into a jump seat
A baggage handler working in extreme heat (up to 120 degrees) in an aircraft belly allegedly passed out and fell face first on a belt loader, suffering additional injuries.
An agent allegedly fainted while in an office. Paramedics were called and had to cut the respirator off the employee’s face.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has openly acknowledged the dangers of improper and prolonged N95 usage, though in reference to healthcare workers.
When HCWs [healthcare workers] are working longer hours without a break while continuously wearing an N95 FFR, blood CO2 levels may increase past the 1-hour mark, which could have a significant physiological effect on the wearer (Lim et al., 2006)*. Some of the known physiological effects of increased concentrations of CO2 include:
Headache;
Increased pressure inside the skull;
Nervous system changes (e.g., increased pain threshold, reduction in cognition – altered judgement, decreased situational awareness, difficulty coordinating sensory or cognitive abilities and motor activity, decreased visual acuity, widespread activation of the sympathetic nervous system that can oppose the direct effects of CO2 on the heart and blood vessels);
Increased breathing frequency;
Increased “work of breathing”, which is result of breathing through a filter medium;
Following several alleged injuries, the airline reportedly took a post-modern approach and issued a disclaimer to its staff, claiming that the N95s and KN95s are only meant to be used as masks, not as respirators, therefore absolving the company of any responsibility to provide training etc., sources familiar with the matter said.
Breitbart News reached out the the airline to ask how an N95 — scientifically — could be used not as intended by its design, but as a regular mask. The publication also subsequently asked, if that is indeed the case, why unvaccinated employees cannot simply wear normal cloth or paper face masks. Furthermore, Breitbart News asked if the airline was aware of OSHA regulations regarding respirators. United Airlines did not respond to any of these questions.
It should be noted that all throughout the height of the pandemic and before Chinese coronavirus vaccines were widely available, United Airlines employees were ordered to wear cloth face masks, which the company provided. The airline’s enforcement of N95 masks is therefore a harsher and more recent development, despite the fact that at least 90 percent of its employees are now vaccinated and reportedly protected against the virus.
Breitbart News also asked United Airlines if the company is making unvaccinated employees wear N95 and KN95 masks for hours longer than suggested by manufacturers, without trainings, fittings, or medical clearance, in order to retaliate against (and/or make uncomfortable) unvaccinated employees during pending litigation regarding reasonable accommodation to religious and medical exemptions. The company, again, did not respond to the accusation.
The Infamous Flight to Mumbai
On October 3, just one day after the company reportedly instituted its potentially dangerous respirator policy, the airline allegedly knowingly allowed a flight containing flight attendants exposed to Chinese coronavirus to travel from Newark to Mumbai, India, bringing into question the airline’s reported passion for keeping employees and passengers safe during the pandemic.
According to a voicemail left for a union called the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) and obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, at least six crew members had close contact and even shook hands with a captain who ended up testing positive for the virus before the flight. The employees were all reportedly together in a small room for longer than 15 minutes while getting tested for the virus and were allegedly unable to maintain six feet of distance between each other — a violation of company policy, which was updated on October 1 and obtained by Breitbart News.
According to a United Airlines employee familiar with the matter, a union representative responded to the voicemail saying there was nothing he could do, though he said the big concern would be if the employees were within six feet of each other for longer than 15 minutes. He then recommended exposed employees speak to an in-flight duty manager (IDFM), which is an employee of United Airlines.
The pilot was reportedly replaced before the flight, which contained at least 190 passengers, some of whom were likely unvaccinated, as the airline does not mandate vaccination for its passengers. However, the exposed crew members, all of whom were vaccinated, allegedly remained on the flight.
According to sources familiar with the situation, an in-flight supervisor told the employees not to worry because symptoms take a few days to show up. Even though one of the employees reportedly felt sick, the supervisor ultimately told them to either stay on the flight or forgo getting paid.
While the six exposed employees allegedly returned from the trip unharmed, the employees did reportedly interact with nearly 200 passengers and hotel staff once in Mumbai. Notably, India has just begun recovering from an extremely deadly Chinese coronavirus surge which set global records for infections and deaths.
Breitbart News obtained the airline’s recently updated health guidelines that say vaccinated crew members who have been exposed to someone with Chinese coronavirus may show up to work if they show no symptoms. The policy seems inconsistent with CDC reports, which found that vaccinated people are still able to carry and spread Chinese coronavirus. People who are infected can also be asymptomatic and can even spread the virus before symptoms appear, a feature of the virus that has been widely known since the beginning of the pandemic.
Breitbart News asked the airline if it understands the current science in light of its company health policies and did not receive a response. The publication also asked if the airline made Indian health officials aware of exposure and did not hear back.
In further contradiction to the airline’s claims of cleanliness, sources familiar with the matter say the company has become extremely lax. According to a source with knowledge of the matter, dirty socks and slippers, used ear plugs, and various garbage has been left behind on flights — and that was after the cleaning crews “cleaned.”
“The hypocrisy is the planes aren’t clean. They’ve gone back to rush them on, rush them off,” a source told Breitbart News, noting that the company also rarely uses anti-microbial spray between flights despite the airline’s claims of doing so.
The “Bigger Story”
Democrats, who were formerly considered the party that championed workers’ rights, have largely touted vaccine mandates as lifesaving without acknowledging intrusions upon personal rights. President Joe Biden recently praised United Airlines for its mandate, calling measures like it life-saving.
President @JoeBiden touts vaccination mandates as a success while speaking in Illinois.
Biden said, "United went from 59% of their employees to 99% of their employees (vaccinated) in two months after implementing the requirement."
When you see headlines and reports of mass firings and hundreds of people losing their jobs, look at the bigger story. I’ve spoke with Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines who is here today. United went from 59 percent of their employees to 99 percent of their employees (vaccinated) in less than two months after implementing the requirement.
Biden failed, however, to connect the dots and explain that United’s high vaccination rate could be the result of mass firings of unvaccinated employees.
The six United Airlines employees who are suing the company for its “draconian” Chinese coronavirus vaccine mandate allege the company has violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against them based on their religious and medical exemptions.
Unvaccinated employees have been allowed to continue working normally while the plaintiffs and the company gather what they need to proceed in court, and they will continue to be able to do so until October 26 due to the judge’s TRO. Those same employees are likely the ones grappling with the airline’s temporary N95 respirator mandate.
CEO Scott Kirby has made his apparent distaste for exemptions known to employees before, which employees alleged in the lawsuit complaint.
In a video from an August 25-26 a virtual internal Flight Ops Town Hall, which Breitbart News obtained, Kirby can be heard talking about how difficult it will be for employees to obtain exemptions.
One employee anonymously questioned whether employees who obtain an exemption will be place on unpaid leave, asking: “Is this really how United plans on handling this very sensitive issue?”
“I don’t think so. I, uhm, I don’t know. That is a question, I don’t know. Um, although I don’t think that’s the case,” Kirby responded, smiling.
He continued:
Um, by the way, there are going to be very few people who get through the medical and religious exemption. There’s some pretty strict rules about that. So, I would encourage any pilot that’s decided they have, all of the sudden, or any employee that has all of the sudden decided ‘I’m really religious’ um, ‘And I’m gonna say I’m gonna get…’ You know, you’re putting your job on the line. You better be very careful about that.
Breitbart News asked the airline if the internal footage shows hostility toward religious employees but did not receive a response.
President Donald Trump appointee Judge Pittman is still expected to hold a hearing in the case on Wednesday, which should last approximately six hours as lawyers from both sides present their arguments. The case is one of the largest of its kind in the United States and could arguably create a domino effect and lead to other vaccine mandate cases across the country if the judge leans in favor of the airline’s employees.
United Airlines was the first big airline to institute a vaccine mandate. Since then, bedlam has broken out as other airlines follow in its footsteps. Airline employees have protested across the country as companies fire employees by the thousands. Just this past weekend, Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel nearly 2,000 flights. The airline cited “staffing issues” and bad weather (there was no bad weather on record), though there was rumor pilots actually staged a mass protest and refused to fly just two days after the Southwest pilots union asked a federal judge to block the company’s vaccine mandate.
Notably, Breitbart News reached out to United Airlines and asked if the company wished to comment on every major accusation detailed in the article. The company did not respond to any of the more than a dozen questions by the time of publication.
The case is Sambrano v. United Airlines, No. 4:21-cv-1074 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Evangelism summit hears call for more confident Church in postmodern, post-Covid world
(Christian Today) There are many challenges facing the UK Church but with the pandemic receding, there are also many opportunities, says the Rev Hugh Osgood.
The Free Churches Moderator was addressing hundreds of pastors and evangelists at the first of four Evangelism Summits being hosted across the UK by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Rev Osgood told participants at Tuesday’s summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that God had used the pandemic for good and that while there were “big challenges”, it was important that the Church “come at these things with a confidence”.
“Somehow in all that we’ve gone through, God is more interested in saying to us: actually, I’ve made the land more fruitful. Somehow that hard land is being broken up by what we’ve gone through. I don’t know how and I don’t understand why, but I want to go out with a new confidence to plant seed in that soil,” he said.
In a session on defending the Gospel, apologist Dr Amy-Orr Ewing warned that social media and AI algorithms were making it easier than ever for people to retreat into their own “echo chambers” instead of engaging with different ideas.
She challenged pastors to “break through” the echo chambers of the current age, while also avoiding the temptation to retreat into echo chambers of their own.
“This is a massive challenge for reaching the next generation. We need to get smart and creative,” she said.
She also admitted it could be “wearying” to minister in the present spiritual climate, and that she was “deeply concerned” about the state of both the nation and the Church, and the “catastrophic confusion” around identity.
“I have never known a time where so many Christian leaders are so discouraged, and so I want to encourage you again today to ask that question: do I really believe in Jesus? Do I really believe the Gospel is Good News in our time? And ask Him to build and grow personal faith in us,” she said.
Dr Orr-Ewing said the challenge was to “defend and contend” for the Gospel in this present time, and speak the Good News of Jesus and every person being made in the image of God into the “vacuum of meaning” left by postmodernism.
“As we defend and contend for the Gospel, we need to [do this] in creative and personal ways outside of our own echo chambers,” she said.
The BGEA summits are free and will next be held in Liverpool on 14 October, Cardiff on 19 October, and London on 15 November.
Speaking to Christian Today about the Evangelism Summits, Rev Osgood said they were a reminder of the importance of face-to-face gatherings, and that it was “timely” to host the events now as the UK emerges from the pandemic.
“The pandemic was very disruptive and that means people are having to do some thinking about what could be done better. So there are some real opportunities,” he said.
Commenting on the challenges to evangelism in the UK, he said it was important that Christians engage positively in society.
“The Church needs to recover its confidence and that I think is the big challenge for evangelism,” he said.
“It’s so easy for the Church to blame how hard the ground is but I feel that, in some ways, the ground is softer now than it’s ever been.
“We need to be confident in the Gospel we proclaim – the cross, the work of the Spirit and to some extent the Church, that we can rise up and make a difference.
“The Church is too good at putting itself on the back foot when we could really step out and make a difference.
“We can’t blame the world and increased secularization because the early church was birthed in an unreceptive environment and yet it made an impact. The challenge for us is to make an impact.”
UK evangelist Roger Chilvers, who helped coordinate the BGEA summits, echoed the call for a more confident Church.
“In the past, we have been in a sense unwilling to upset people, and Covid has helped us to see that life is fragile and so we need to preach the centrality of the cross with clarity and boldness. We must get over this ’embarrassment’, if you like, about the cross,” he said.
His comments echoed an earlier session at the summit led by Dr Charles Price, who exhorted ministers to preach on the power of the cross.
“You and I need to ask in our own ministries: am I preaching the cross? Now, it’s foolishness to people and we’re embarrassed by that so we kind of hold back a bit. We want to preach nice things people will like but we’ve got to come back to the cross,” he said.
Despite the disruption caused by Covid, Chilvers was positive about the growth experienced by many churches during the pandemic and the way in which churches are using this time to think about how they can adapt to the post-Covid world.
“Now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, most churches are beginning to ask themselves: are we just going to go back to how we were before or is God telling us to do something different?” he said.
“The summits in these four cities are taking place to help churches think through not so much the nuts and bolts of how to do evangelism but the foundational aspects, like the centrality of the cross and discipleship and defending the Gospel.
“While Covid has had a negative effect on church life in many areas, there are also many churches that have grown very unexpectedly during Covid and I think that’s because not only the Church but society itself is beginning to ask ‘where are we going?’ and ‘what is life about?’.”