The Los Angeles City Council has just passed an ordinance requiring Angelinos to show proof of vaccination before entering indoor establishments throughout the city. The ordinance passed on Wednesday by a vote margin of 11-2.
Fox11 News reports that the new policy will be enacted in full by Nov.6 and applies to the following:
establishments that serve food or beverages, including restaurants, bars, fast food establishments, coffee shops, tasting rooms, cafeterias, food courts, breweries, wineries, distilleries banquet halls and hotel ballrooms;
gyms and fitness venues, including recreation facilities, fitness studios (including for yoga, pilates, dance, and barre), boxing gyms, fitness boot camps and facilities that hold indoor group fitness classes;
entertainment and recreation venues including movie theaters, shopping centers, concert venues, performance venues, adult entertainment venues, commercial event and party venues, sports arenas, convention centers, exhibition halls, museums, malls, performing arts theaters, bowling alleys, arcades, card rooms, family entertainment centers, pool and billiard halls, play areas and game centers; and
personal care establishments, including spas, nail salons, hair salons, barbershops, tanning salons, estheticians, skin care, tattoo shops, piercing shops and massage therapy locations, unless medically required.
Retail establishments such as grocery stores and pharmacies are not included in the ordinance.
It’s now apparent that President Joe Biden is using a fake set to conduct business — but why?
Social media was abuzz last week after eagle-eyed observers noticed that Biden received his COVID-19 booster shot on something resembling a Hollywood soundstage version of the White House.
As if getting a third dose of the vaccine while wearing a mask wasn’t performative enough already, the setting led many to point out that Biden has a peculiar penchant for political theater.
In an apparent effort to downplay the oddity of it all, PolitiFact noted that the set was not constructed just for him to receive his booster shot but was made for a virtual summit with world leaders held days before. It was built in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the broader White House campus.
Still, it’s strange that it continues to be Biden’s preferred venue. Another virtual meeting was held there Wednesday, this time to discuss raising the debt ceiling with business leaders.
The set became a topic of discussion on social media once again as one glaring detail made it look even more absurdly fake.
“The digital projection window of Biden’s White House set shows flowers in bloom in the Rose Garden,” Breitbart’s Charlie Spiering said. Of course, a blooming flower garden is something of a rarity in Washington, D.C., in autumn.
“The set was constructed across the street from the actual WH in the Executive Office Building,” Spiering noted.
The digital projection window of Biden’s White House set shows flowers in bloom in the Rose Garden.
The set was constructed across the street from the actual WH in the Executive Office Building pic.twitter.com/nBjUaSMhLU
Political commentator Kambree Kawahine Koa even used the charade to underscore a point about Frances Haugen, the Democratic operative turned Facebook whistleblower whose timely revelations many believe don’t pass the smell test.
“The [Facebook] whistleblower is definitely a Democrat. This feels as staged as Biden’s fake White House backdrop he uses for photo ops,” Koa quipped.
The facebook whistleblower is definitely a Democrat. This feels as staged as Biden’s fake White House backdrop he uses for photo ops.
Even if there’s sound reasoning behind the set — more room, better acoustics, convenience, technological advantages — the optics of speaking from a fake White House just across the street from the real thing lends credence to the feeling that everything about this administration has been carefully manufactured.
He rarely emerged from his basement during his campaign and seldom goes off-script now that he’s in office, a feat only achievable with masterful behind-the-scenes orchestration.
Biden’s movements are tightly controlled by handlers who want to keep opportunities for him to mess up to an absolute minimum.
Everything about his presidency seems like a big fat lie.
But holding events on a soundstage takes this literal political theater to a surreal new level, putting the finishing touches on an administration built on media magic and little else.
A Christian nurse in the United Kingdom has sued her former employer, alleging she was intimidated and forced out of her job because she wore a cross on a necklace while at work.
The Daily Mail reports NHS theatre practitioner Mary Onuoha claims she faced a campaign by her bosses at Croydon University Hospital in South London to make her remove or cover up the small gold symbol. She’s brought a legal challenge against the Croydon Health Services NHS Trust on the grounds of harassment, victimization, direct and indirect discrimination, and constructive unfair dismissal.
Represented by attorneys with the Christian Legal Centre, a legal ministry of the watchdog group Christian Concern, Onuoha, 61, had been a member of the hospital’s staff for 18 years. She said she wore the cross for 40 years to represent her deep Christian faith.
Six years ago, Onuoha said she was told by her managers to remove the cross or face disciplinary action. She was told it was a health and safety risk and “must not be visible.” Yet other clinical staff members at the hospital were permitted to wear jewelry, saris, turbans, and hijabs without being asked to remove them.
Only the cross and its owner were subject to being penalized, she claimed.
The issue escalated in August 2018 when her bosses at the hospital ordered her to remove the cross saying it was a breach of the Trust’s Dress Code and Uniform Policy and therefore a health risk to her and to patients.
Onuoha believes it was the hospital’s management team who breached the organization’s dress code, which reads:
“The Trust welcomes the variety of appearances brought by individual styles, choices and religious requirements regarding dress; this will be treated sensitively and will be agreed on an individual basis with the Manager and Trust and must conform to health, safety and security regulations, infection prevention and control and moving and handling guidelines. The wearing of saris, turbans, kirpan, skullcaps, hijabs, kippahs and clerical collars arising from particular cultural/religious norms are seen as part of welcoming diversity.”
In contradiction to this policy, Onuoha was required at all times to wear several lanyards, (which have no anti-strangle clasps) while at the same time the Trust claimed that wearing items from the neck, such as her chain with a cross, posed a “risk of injury or infection.”
After her refusal to comply, she was investigated, suspended from clinical duties, and demoted to working as a receptionist.
Until her resignation in August 2020, Onuoha was constantly moved from one administrative role to the next, which she found deeply humiliating. She was also put under pressure and ordered not to tell anyone about what was happening to her. As she was unable to explain to any colleagues why this was happening, it took a lasting emotional toll on her.
“This has always been an attack on my faith,” Onuoha said. “My cross has been with me for 40 years. It is part of me, and my faith, and it has never caused anyone any harm. All I have ever wanted is to be a nurse and to be true to my faith.”
“I am a strong woman, but I have been treated like a criminal,” she continued.”I love my job, but I am not prepared to compromise my faith for it, and neither should other Christian NHS staff in this country.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said, “From the beginning, this case has been about one or two members of staff being offended by the cross – the worldwide, recognized and cherished symbol of the Christian faith. It is upsetting that an experienced nurse, during a pandemic, has been forced to choose between her faith and the profession she loves.”
“Why do some NHS employers feel that the cross is less worthy of protection or display than other religious attire?” Williams asked. “How Mary was treated over a sustained period was appalling and cannot go unchallenged.”
“Mary’s whole life has been dedicated to caring for others and her love for Jesus. We are determined to fight for justice,” she said.
Onuoha’s attorneys presented their case before the Croydon Employment Tribunal on Tuesday, according to The Daily Mail. The hospital did not provide comment.
CBN News will update this story once a decision has been reached.
Vermont, the state with the highest vaccination rate in the United States, is experiencing a CCP virus surge at levels not seen since the pandemic’s peak last winter.
The number of cases in Vermont is at a record level, hospitalizations are close to the records notched last winter, and the state recorded the deadliest day and the second deadliest month of the pandemic in September.
“I think it’s clearly frustrating for all of us,” Michael Pieciak, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation who monitors CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus statistics for the state.
Cases in Vermont, already at record levels for the state, just keep on rising, even with the highest vaccination rate in the country — 89% of the 18+ population is at least partially vaccinated, 88% of 12+ & ~100% of seniors
More than 69 percent of Vermont’s population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Sept. 24, according to the CDC, far above the national rate of 56 percent.
The state recorded the highest rate of hospitalizations per 100,000 residents on Sept. 30, breaching a record set on Jan. 31 last year. Eight people died of the CCP virus in Vermont on Sept. 13, the highest grim total recorded since the outbreak of the virus.
In late August, four of ten cases of COVID-19 in Vermont were among vaccinated people, according to a letter signed by 90 employees of the Vermont Health Department, including state Epidemiologist Patsy Kelso.
Gov. Phil Scott (R) lifted the state of emergency in Vermont in June when 80 percent of the population had received at least one shot of the vaccine. He has since indicated he is wary of reimposing the state of emergency.
“We can’t be in a perpetual state of emergency,” Scott said this week.
The four states which follow Vermont in terms of the highest vaccination rates in the nation are also experiencing alarming signs.
The head of UMass Memorial Health, the largest health system in central Massachusetts, said recently that regional hospitals were seeing nearly 20 times more COVID-19 patients than in June and there isn’t an ICU bed to spare. Massachusetts has the fifth-highest vaccination rate in the nation.
In Connecticut, the second most vaccinated state in the U.S., the legislature recently extended the governor’s emergency powers to make it easier to cope with the latest wave of the pandemic.
On Sept. 22, Maine, the third most-vaccinated U.S. state, had nearly 90 people in intensive care units, a pandemic peak for the state.
Maine is about to set a new high in cases, with 86% of everyone over 18 at least partially vaccinated, 84% 12+ & 99% of 65+
Their daily average is now well above the national average & currently 69% higher than Florida
The Archbishop of San Francisco issued a scathing statement saying the pro-abortion Women’s Health Protection Act (HR 3755) passed by Congress is something he’d expect from a “devout Satanist” rather than a devoted Catholic.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone called out Catholic politicians, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who had praised the pro-abortion measure saying it’s about people’s medical choices.
Cordileone directed those supporting HR 3755 to consider recent comments made by Pope Francis who compared abortion to murder.
“It is especially shameful that any self-professed Catholic would be implicated in such an evil, let alone advocate for it,” he wrote. “To Catholic politicians in particular, I implore you to listen to the words of Pope Francis who just last weekend, during his flight back to Rome from Slovakia, said: ‘Abortion is more than a problem. Abortion is homicide … It is a human life, period. And this human life must be respected.”
Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the measure on Sept. 24 with a vote of 218 to 211, so now it’s up to the Senate.
The bill would allow abortion of viable preborn babies, nullify a women’s “right to know” laws and parental involvement statutes for minors. It would also overturn state laws that protect unborn people with Down Syndrome, among other things.
“This proposed legislation is nothing short of child sacrifice, and clearly in reaction, among other things, to the recently passed Texas Heartbeat bill,” the Archbishop added. “It should come as no surprise, then, that that (Texas) bill is being challenged by none other than The Satanic Temple and precisely on the grounds of religious freedom.”
“Indeed, HR 3755 is surely the type of legislation one would expect from a devout Satanist, not a devout Catholic,” he said.
He then asked Catholics to pray and fast for lawmakers of Congress, including Pelosi, that there would be a conversion of their hearts.
“I therefore ask all Catholics in our country immediately to pray and fast for members of Congress to do the right thing and keep this atrocity from being enacted in the law,” Cordileone noted. “A child is not an object to be thrown away, and neither is a mother’s heart. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the answer to a woman in a crisis pregnancy is not violence but love. This is America. We can do better.”
Cordileone asked people to sign up for the “Rose and Rosary for Nancy” campaign at BenedictInstitute.org. When participants sign up, a rose is sent to Pelosi “as a symbol of your prayer and fasting for her.”
When asked about the Archbishop’s remarks, Pelosi responded, “It’s not our business how other people choose the size and timing of their families. What business is it of any of us to tell anyone else what to do?”
As CBN News reported last summer, bishops in the United States discussed whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, including President Joe Biden, Pelosi, and climate czar John Kerry should be denied Communion for their views.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) agreed in June that it would not put forth a policy on withholding communion from pro-choice politicians.
Three U.S. medical certifying boards have warned doctors that they risk losing their certification and license if they spread COVID vaccine misinformation.
Internists, family doctors and pediatricians received an email on Sept. 9 that quoted a warning from the Federation of State Medical Boards in July which read:
“Providing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine contradicts physicians’ ethical and professional responsibilities, and therefore may subject a physician to disciplinary actions, including suspension or revocation of their medical licence.”
Richard Baron, president and chief executive of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), told The BMJ that the move was an attempt to establish a standard of care.
“As standard setting organizations, we thought it was important to be on record, in a public way, to make clear that putting out flagrant misinformation is unethical and dangerous during a pandemic.” Baron said that the statement has been well received — “4 to 1 positive.”
But community physicians contacted by The BMJ thought differently.
“When I got that email I thought I’d better not put anything on social media about vaccines,” said Shveta Raju, a community physician in the Atlanta, Georgia, area, who has treated COVID patients and led the vaccination effort at her outpatient clinic.
“The email was sent more as a veiled threat to keep doctors on the official, established narrative, and that’s what I find chilling,” said a pediatrician who pseudonymously blogs under the name Elizabeth Bennett.
“Pandemic or no, there is a problem with having an ill-defined concept of misinformation that’s tied to public health messaging that hasn’t been consistent. How are physicians supposed to figure out what is misinformation when public health messaging swings so wildly?” Bennett asked.
Undefined offense
Baron said that the statement was also intended to signal the certifying boards’ support for physicians “trying to do the right thing.”
“We wanted to support that group and say ‘hey, we do have a standard of care here and you are doing the right thing when you uphold it,’” he said.
Raju responded, “If that was their intent, they should have defined misinformation. By leaving it undefined, the message was that we can’t talk about this at all.” She said that physicians are, by and large, a conservative group. “If they’re not sure what can be deemed misinformation, physicians would rather be quiet.”
Bennett concurred: “The thing I find most alarming is that they don’t define misinformation, but if they strip you of your board certification, you would lose your means of earning a living.”
Doctors spreading misinformation?
Official and social media company efforts to target “vaccine misinformation” predate the pandemic. But the new statement from ABIM, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the American Board of Pediatrics is one of several recent statements putting doctors in the spotlight for the first time.
In Canada, warnings about physician information began earlier, when in April the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario declared that physicians “have a professional responsibility not to communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing, and anti-lockdown statements or promote unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19.”
The Canadian statement triggered an outcry, leading to a clarification that the statement was “not intended to stifle a healthy public debate about how best to address aspects of the pandemic.”
But concerns continued. In June, a Canadian member of parliament held a press conference on censorship of Canadian clinicians and scientists. YouTube removed the video of the meeting.
The BMJ asked ABIM about the size of the problem of board certified physicians spreading misinformation. “We don’t have a sense of numbers of physicians spreading misinformation,” Baron said. “We’re at the beginning.” He believed it was only a “small number of doctors.”
The medical boards opted to send the statement to all doctors, he said, because focusing on just the offending individuals would “miss the impact they’re having because of how much their voices are being amplified.”
As an example of “unprofessional or unethical behaviour,” Baron cited the case of a Florida doctor offering medical exemptions from mask wearing for $50 (£37; €43).
Personalized medicine — or one-size-fits-all?
The BMJ asked whether physicians expressing doubt about the need for booster doses or vaccination of patients with natural immunity — two matters that have been the subject of debate and changing official guidance — would qualify as misinformation.
“I don’t think we have concerns with doctors wrestling with areas where the science is unclear,” Baron said, “but there is no debate about whether people should get a primary vaccination series.”
Raju worries about the impact on personalized care. “The job of physicians is to take guidelines and apply them to the patient in front of them.” But now “physicians are basically being told that when it comes to COVID vaccines it’s one-size-fits-all.”
Baron said: “We’re not trying to stifle conversations between doctors and patients. We understand that different people may look at evidence in different ways, but when you have an overwhelming preponderance of medical consensus in a certain area, you need at least to tell patients that there is an overwhelming professional consensus here.”
Cautious approach
Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard Medical School, said that in the context of the pandemic, he was “not opposed to certain levels of misinformation triggering a decision to question somebody’s license.” He said, “I can see this being an appropriate remedy at a time of public health emergency.
“But this is not how the system for licensure and certification has traditionally worked, and creates many opportunities for mistaken judgment about what is and is not misinformation, and those decisions would have to be rendered with extreme caution.”
Flier added, “We have to remember that there are legitimate areas of debate, and such matters should not fall within the scope of disciplinary actions.
“There are reasons to be concerned that state boards might be unprepared for these kinds of decisions at a time when so many aspects of COVID policy have been enmeshed with political views.”
Footnotes:
This article was updated on Oct. 4 to make clear that it was medical certifying boards, rather than licensing boards, that emailed physicians. The email quoted an earlier warning from the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Competing interests: Peter Doshi gave a public statement at a Sept. 17, 2021 FDA advisory committee to discuss COVID-19 vaccines, where he highlighted the joint statement. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official policy or position of the University of Maryland.
Provenance: commissioned — not externally peer reviewed.
Originally published by The BMJ Oct. 1, 2021, written by Peter Doshi, reproduced here under the terms of the CC BY NC license.
Gas prices rose to the highest levels since 2014, amid increased demand and concerns about supply.
According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose two cents to $3.204, the highest level it has been since October 2014, according to USA Today. California’s prices are the highest, at an average of $4.414 per gallon. Mississippi has the lowest prices, averaging $2.829 per gallon.
Gas prices have also risen more than a full dollar since last year, from $2.186 in October 2020.
The highest recorded national average was $4.114, in July of 2008.
The increase in prices at the pump is likely due to the substantial increase in oil prices. Crude oil prices have spiked to more than $80 per barrel, according to Bloomberg.
A report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), noted that total domestic gasoline stocks in the U.S. increased slightly, from 221.6 million barrels last week to 221.8 million barrels this week. Gasoline production is currently at around 9.7 million barrels per day, up a little more than 800,000 barrels per day from the same time last year. But demand has also accelerated from around 9.4 million barrels per day, up from about 8.5 million barrels per day in September 2020 and from 8.9 million just last week. According to EIA data cited by AAA, oil production was below pre-COVID levels, during the same time period in 2019.
“Global economic uncertainty and supply chain concerns caused by the lingering COVID-19 pandemic could be playing a role in keeping crude oil prices elevated,” said AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross in a statement. “But, there may be some relief on the horizon due to the news that OPEC and its allies might ramp up production increases faster than previously agreed.”
As demand for crude oil decreased because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) slashed its oil production but has since begun to ramp up production as economic activity and travel returns to normal.
OPEC previously decided on a gradual increase in production of about 400,000 barrels of oil per month until April 2022. Saudi Arabia, the de facto head of the organization, has increased its output to near pre-COVID levels, to about 9.8 million barrels of oil per day, according to Bloomberg.
There was hope from some corners that OPEC would increase its output by a larger figure. Bloomberg reported that some delegates were anticipating a higher than expected production increase, but the organization decided to continue its gradual uptick at a meeting Monday.
The U.S. Imports about 989,000 barrels per day, about 10 percent of its total oil production.
Instead of recognizing a mom as the hero that she is for protecting children from porn and pedophilia in school libraries, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a declaration of war on America’s parents.
Local mother Stacy Langton stood before the Fairfax County School Board in a suburb of the nation’s capital two weeks ago, boldly exposing explicit examples of child porn and pedophilia in library books in area schools, available to children as young as 12 years old.
Langton’s witness ended in mayhem because the school board failed to do something very simple: listen to the stakeholders — and taxpayers — who are parents. Board members rudely interrupted Langton during her two minutes of allotted speaking time and called a hasty recess, a board member later incorrectly claiming that he faced two “exorcisms” by parents praying during the meeting.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” shouted parents, horrified at the cowardice of the board members.
Now, however, instead of recognizing Langton for the hero that she is for protecting children, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a declaration of war on America’s parents.
“I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to … [address] threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,” he wrote in a memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and the U.S. attorneys generals on Monday night.
Langton, of course, didn’t threaten anyone. But in this war, facts don’t matter.
In just five days, Garland issued that response to a September 29 letter by the National School Boards Association alleging, incredulously: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Neither the school board association nor Garland mentioned the word “parents,” as if to acknowledge us, even in an attack, is to validate us. But we know. It’s now the United States vs. America’s parents.
I taped a message to the Nat’l Association of School Boards. I am what a domestic terrorist looks like? You owe parents an apology! Politely message them @NSBAPublicEd, 703-838-6722 info@nsba.org. Copy me. We reject violence. I am an #UnapologeticParent ❤️ Like you! @defendingedpic.twitter.com/2cSqzDuj9C
— Asra Q. Nomani “Domestic Terrorist” (@AsraNomani) October 1, 2021
Parents Taking a Stand
The attacks are clearly directed at the thousands of parents who have valiantly overcome their own fears of retaliation, public speaking, and confrontation to advocate in defense of their children, from Beaverton, Oregon, to South Kingstown, Rhode Island, only to be made a caricature by media outlets from NBC News to CNN and Saturday Night Live.
There is one response parents must have: stand strong in defense of America’s children. Be unapologetic. Reject violence and threats of violence, as you always do. And do not be intimidated, silenced, shamed, or bullied.
Since the COVID pandemic shut schools down in the spring of 2020, school board officials have frustrated parents across the country with mixed messages on reopening schools and diverting attention and taxpayer money to virtue signaling, renaming schools, and promoting divisive activist causes. We have been muted, silenced, and reprimanded.
I know because all of that has happened to me since I first spoke to my school board in early June 2020. As I tried to get the last words of my statement out during public participation this past spring, the school board president yelled at me, “Go to your seat!”
Yet, we persist. Across the country, parents are more empowered than probably at any time in America’s history. At Parents Defending Education, an organization that a group of moms and others started earlier this year, we have tallied more than 160 parent groups that have organically sprung up across the country.
That is a threat to two special-interest groups: teachers unions and the politicians they prop up.
Questionable Contract
Importantly, the issues we raise before school boards are very close to home for even a political appointee such as Garland. Over the past two weeks, in Fairfax County, Virginia, parents have been challenging a $2.4 million contract with Boston-based Panorama Education.
The contractor will soon begin submitting all county students to a “social and emotional learning screener” unless parents fill out an “opt-out” form (the deadline is this Friday, October 8). Since its founding by two Yale students a few years ago, Panorama Education has built a booming business with school boards, gaining rich contracts collecting data on students with surveys asking questions like: “During the past week, how often did you feel sad?”
Garland’s daughter is married to a co-founder of Panorama Education, Xan Tanner. Parents have raised the concern with the school board that controversial Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is an investor in Panorama Education, sparking concern among parents that the company is data mining their children’s most intimate emotions. The company depends on school boards to approve its multimillion dollars of contracts – without parent dissent.
Attorney General Chills Free Speech
Garland’s memo may chill free speech – and parental opposition to waste, fraud, corruption, and incompetence by school boards. His association of parents with “domestic terrorism” is not only a slap in the face to sincere parents, it is — tragically — a cruel insult to victims of terrorism around the world. As parents, we are accidental activists in service to our children and our country, rejecting violence and actual terrorism.
Late Friday, a coalition of parent groups representing 427,000 members sent a letter to the National School Boards Association stating, “Your letter to President Biden is a thinly veiled threat, intended to intimidate into silence and submission the very constituents that your members ostensibly represent.”
Buried in the footnotes of the school board association’s letter, the slanderous charge of “domestic terrorism” was attributed to incidents including these: winery entrepreneur Jon Tigges getting arrested after he yelled at his school board in Loudoun County, Virginia, for prematurely ending public comments; an “unruly crowd” at a Spotsylvania, Pennsylvania, board meeting; and protesters who dared to “disrupt” a school board in Poway Unified School District, California.
Launching a war on parents is a very serious mistake, not only politically but morally. It is a parent who nurses a child through the night, long after the school bell has rung. Misguided policymakers, politicians, and school board members need to stop making an enemy of parents. Issue a ceasefire. Apologize. And listen.
At Parents Defending Education, we opened an online portal at our website, so parents could send a message to the Justice Department, and parents flooded the portal with 1,508 emails to the Justice Department in the first four hours.
A Mom’s Message
Because of her courage here in Fairfax County, Langton’s issue of child porn and pedophilia in schools has emerged as a national issue, with parents planning to return to the school board this Thursday evening to protest the porn and pedophilia in school library books. Despite the threat by Garland, Langton is undeterred and readying her homemade sign for the Thursday rally with a simple message to school board members: “Resign FairfaXXX.”
Langton won’t be allowed to speak at the school board meeting Thursday, as speakers were chosen by lottery and there are new restrictions on how often a community member can speak. But she will be there, cheering on the other parents. “I won’t be cowed,” she said.
Her message to parents is also simple: “Stand up, parents. Don’t be intimidated.”
Japan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would consider its “options” and make necessary “preparations” toward supporting Taiwan if China continues to ramp up its military intimidation of the island.
Asked by reporters how Tokyo views Beijing’s record-breaking flyovers through Taiwanese airspace in recent days, Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said he hoped “this matter is resolved peacefully between the two parties through direct talks.”
“Additionally, instead of simply monitoring the situation, we hope to weigh the various possible scenarios that may arise to consider what options we have, as well as the preparations we must make,” he said at an October 5 press briefing.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, wearing a face mask to curb the spread of COVID-19, sits at a table during bilateral talks with United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the sidelines of a G7 foreign ministers meeting, at Grosvenor House Hotel, London, Monday, May 3, 2021. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)
“Motegi’s comments on Taiwan mark a departure from the past by explicitly speaking of possible involvement, and were also aimed at drawing international attention to the issue and pressing China,” Reuters observed on Tuesday, citing the analysis of political experts.
“That part was always unspoken … but this time, they’re taking a stronger stand,” Yoichiro Sato, an international relations professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, told Reuters on October 5.
Japan’s use of assertive language while addressing the Taiwan-China conflict on October 5 signaled a significant shift in rhetoric according to Robert Ward, a London-based senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“It is drawing a line of sorts and thus creating expectations,” he told Reuters.
“The new government will continue with the harder line, as Motegi is showing. This fits with Japan’s broader push to balance China from a position of strength,” Ward opined.
Japanese Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo appeared to walk back Motegi’s uncharacteristically bold statement on Tuesday in separate comments to the press. Tokyo hopes Beijing and Taipei find a solution to their territorial dispute via “direct dialogue,” he told reporters at a press conference on October 5.
File photo taken in September 2012 shows (from front) Minamikojima, Kitakojima and Uotsuri islands of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese army is weighing the full use of unmanned aircraft to regularly monitor the East China Sea, a move that may add fuel to heightened tension in the area where Japanese-controlled islands claimed by China lie, a Chinese document on the country’s use of drones showed June 12, 2015. (Kyodo via AP Images)
“It is Japan’s consistent stance that we hope the issue surrounding Taiwan will be resolved through direct dialogue between the party involved,” Kishi assured journalists.
Tokyo has become increasingly invested in deterring Chinese military encroachments of Taiwan because the island lies a short distance away from Japan’s Senkaku islets, which are illegally claimed by Beijing.
“Because we are close geographically, what could happen in Taiwan could likely be an issue for Japan, and in that case, Japan will have to take the necessary response to that situation,” Kishi told CNN on September 16.
The Washington Post, the Guardian and 150 other news outlets have obtained access to 11.9 million “confidential files” on offshore bank accounts and companies in 200 countries, melodramatically dubbed “the Pandora Papers”, the next in a series of illegal hacks released to damage certain companies and high-profile figures after the “Panama Papers” and “Paradise Papers”, among others.
While the “Pandora Papers” have so far produced little evidence of any real crimes being committed, the real question is, when will international finance authorities start examining the dubious way Soros-tied NGOs, media and “investigative journalists” manipulate markets with spurious allegations that rarely lead to any criminal convictions?
In “Secret Empires”, corruption expert Peter Schweizer (“Clinton Cash”) documents how Soros and other Obama loyalists like Tom Steyer and Marty Nesbitt parlayed their advance knowledge of Obama policy into millions in revenue. In 2009, for example, George Soros started investing $1.1 billion in “green” and “climate change” NGOs to push for tougher policy on coal and oil drilling, while at the same time shorting the affected companies and later buying them for pennies on the dollar.
When Donald Trump was unexpectedly elected President in 2016, George Soros not only lost approx. $1 billion, he also lost his exclusive access to the White House, which he has been fighting tooth and nail ever since to regain. In the meantime, however, he may have needed an alternate method of manipulating markets and reaping profits – conceivably, this may be how the idea of using illegal hacks and the Open Society network of “investigative journalists”, left-wing media and “research collectives” was born.
A series of data dumps were thus foist upon the world as sensational news stories – “Swiss Leaks”, “Lux Leaks”, the “Panama Papers” and “Paradise Papers” – usually with very little actual criminal activity behind them. Thus, the biggest victim of the so-called “Paradise Papers” was Apple Computer, which stood accused of tax evasion, which it denied, stating it had paid $35 billion in taxes in the time period concerned. In July 2020, Apple Computer was completely exonerated of the spurious claims by the Court of the European Union – not that anybody took any notice. The damage was already done.
In 2020, Soros-tied NGOs were investing massively in order to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump, perhaps raising the need for more cash in the run-up to the election. Coincidentally, on Sept. 21, 2020, ICIJ reporters Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier dropped the so-called FinCen Files, accusing Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank of shady ties to shifty characters. (Obermayer and Obermaier are also behind the plot to bring down the patriotic Austrian government 2019, and the ICIJ Pegasus Spy Softwareattacks on conervative governments worldwide.)
Share prices of the banks concerned tanked approx. 5% the next market day, allowing any hedge fund which happened to have any foreknowledge of the “explosive revelations” to reap a handy profit. Throughout 2020, investment firm Blackrock had taken a series of short positions in Deutsche Bank, for example. Little has come of the allegedly nefarious dealings of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank since then.
Now that the key German elections are over, the Soros-tied media network lost no time in hyping their next data dump, the “Pandora Papers”, while conspicuously failing to reveal exactly what foreknowledge Soros-related investment funds had of the upcoming “bombshell” allegations.
The so-called “investigative journalists” involved in exposing the “secrets of the global elite” of course neglect to ever examine the offshore banking practices of Soros Fund, Quantum Fund and other OSF-tied funds all located in tax shelters like Panama, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, or the practice of laundering money through tax-exempt NGOs which are then used to influence public policy and destroy entire companies and industries.
‘Treated Like a Criminal’ for Wearing a Cross: Veteran Christian Nurse Sues UK Employer for Discrimination
A Christian nurse in the United Kingdom has sued her former employer, alleging she was intimidated and forced out of her job because she wore a cross on a necklace while at work.
The Daily Mail reports NHS theatre practitioner Mary Onuoha claims she faced a campaign by her bosses at Croydon University Hospital in South London to make her remove or cover up the small gold symbol. She’s brought a legal challenge against the Croydon Health Services NHS Trust on the grounds of harassment, victimization, direct and indirect discrimination, and constructive unfair dismissal.
Represented by attorneys with the Christian Legal Centre, a legal ministry of the watchdog group Christian Concern, Onuoha, 61, had been a member of the hospital’s staff for 18 years. She said she wore the cross for 40 years to represent her deep Christian faith.
Six years ago, Onuoha said she was told by her managers to remove the cross or face disciplinary action. She was told it was a health and safety risk and “must not be visible.” Yet other clinical staff members at the hospital were permitted to wear jewelry, saris, turbans, and hijabs without being asked to remove them.
Only the cross and its owner were subject to being penalized, she claimed.
The issue escalated in August 2018 when her bosses at the hospital ordered her to remove the cross saying it was a breach of the Trust’s Dress Code and Uniform Policy and therefore a health risk to her and to patients.
Onuoha believes it was the hospital’s management team who breached the organization’s dress code, which reads:
“The Trust welcomes the variety of appearances brought by individual styles, choices and religious requirements regarding dress; this will be treated sensitively and will be agreed on an individual basis with the Manager and Trust and must conform to health, safety and security regulations, infection prevention and control and moving and handling guidelines. The wearing of saris, turbans, kirpan, skullcaps, hijabs, kippahs and clerical collars arising from particular cultural/religious norms are seen as part of welcoming diversity.”
In contradiction to this policy, Onuoha was required at all times to wear several lanyards, (which have no anti-strangle clasps) while at the same time the Trust claimed that wearing items from the neck, such as her chain with a cross, posed a “risk of injury or infection.”
After her refusal to comply, she was investigated, suspended from clinical duties, and demoted to working as a receptionist.
Until her resignation in August 2020, Onuoha was constantly moved from one administrative role to the next, which she found deeply humiliating. She was also put under pressure and ordered not to tell anyone about what was happening to her. As she was unable to explain to any colleagues why this was happening, it took a lasting emotional toll on her.
“This has always been an attack on my faith,” Onuoha said. “My cross has been with me for 40 years. It is part of me, and my faith, and it has never caused anyone any harm. All I have ever wanted is to be a nurse and to be true to my faith.”
“I am a strong woman, but I have been treated like a criminal,” she continued.”I love my job, but I am not prepared to compromise my faith for it, and neither should other Christian NHS staff in this country.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said, “From the beginning, this case has been about one or two members of staff being offended by the cross – the worldwide, recognized and cherished symbol of the Christian faith. It is upsetting that an experienced nurse, during a pandemic, has been forced to choose between her faith and the profession she loves.”
“Why do some NHS employers feel that the cross is less worthy of protection or display than other religious attire?” Williams asked.
“How Mary was treated over a sustained period was appalling and cannot go unchallenged.”
“Mary’s whole life has been dedicated to caring for others and her love for Jesus. We are determined to fight for justice,” she said.
Onuoha’s attorneys presented their case before the Croydon Employment Tribunal on Tuesday, according to The Daily Mail. The hospital did not provide comment.
CBN News will update this story once a decision has been reached.