A new report details that China purchased a massive amount of testing equipment for viruses like COVID-19 months before the WHO filed official reports of the outbreak in December 2019. The testing equipment in question is what is known as a PCR test or polymerase chain reaction test. These tests can be used to detect viruses in humans or animals.
The report indicates that spending for PCR tests jumped in China from 36.7 million yuan in 2018 to 67.4 million yuan in 2019. The report also details that “notable, significant and abnormal” purchases of PCR equipment were made in 2019 “in Wuhan by the People’s Liberation Army Airborne Army Hospital (May 2019), The Wuhan Institute of Virology (November 2019), the Wuhan University of Science and Technology (October 2019), and the Hubei Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (May-Dec. 2019)”
“We have come to the conclusion,” the Internet 2.0 report states, “that based on the data analyzed it suggests the virus was highly likely to be spreading virulently in Wuhan, China, as early as the summer of 2019 and definitely by the early autumn.”
According to Newsweek, former director of U.S. National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says the increased purchases of PCR tests is compelling evidence that China knew of a circulating virus prior to the first WHO report.
“I think there’s more than just smoke here, I think there’s fire from a whole bunch of different sources,” Ratcliffe says. “I think that would be another compelling piece of evidence, if you need more. I don’t need more.”
However, according to David Robinson, Internet 2.0’s co-chief and lead researcher on the report, and Robert Potter, the co-CEO, the data in the report didn’t provide conclusive evidence on COVID-19’s origins.
“This data does not support any origins’ conclusions on COVID-19 but in the future some part of this data might support an origins finding,” the two CEOs said in a statement. “Nor does this report identify a specific point in time where a pandemic emerged. The fact that China has gone to great lengths to ensure conclusive evidence is unobtainable means unfortunately we may have to rely on third-party data points.”
However, not all agree with the report’s findings, even if it is inconclusive. According to a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, only scientists can understand science and questions of the virus’ origin should be left to scientists.
“Virus traceability is a serious scientific issue that should be addressed by scientists,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday. “China’s anti-epidemic campaign is open to the world, the situation is clear, the facts are clear at a glance, and stand the test of time and history.”
Company becomes latest airline to submit to vaccination decree as some employees resist
Reuters reports that Southwest Airlines has announced that it will introduce COVID vaccine mandates for all its employees by early December, in order to ‘comply’ with the federal mandate set out by the Biden administration.
“Southwest Airlines must join our industry peers in complying with the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination directive,” said Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, further noting that in order “to continue employment with the airline,” employees must submit to the mandate.
Reuters notes that an internal memo to staff instructs them to submit their vaccination status with relevant documentation by Nov. 24, advising workers “If you’re not yet fully vaccinated, plan accordingly to meet the deadline.”
The mandate, which covers federal contractors as well as those directly employed by the government, will also be followed by American Airlines, according to a statement by the company last week.
In a letter to employees, Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom wrote “While we are still working through the details of the federal requirements, it is clear that team members who choose to remain unvaccinated will not be able to work at American Airlines.”
One American Airlines employee spoke out against the move Monday, vowing to “go down fighting,” against the measure.
“We kind of seen it coming down the pipe,” customer service agent Ryan Wellington told reporters, adding “We just thought that by this time when it came to our turn that the government would change their outlook on it but we’re kind of naive to think that would be the thing.”
“We have the freedom to not put things into our body that we don’t want so we kind of expected more of a boisterous opposition from our upper management on our behalf, but obviously their hands are kind of tied because this is a federal thing and not an American Airlines thing,” Wellington further noted.
“I know what I believe in,” he continued, urging “I trust my science which is my anatomy, my immune system. I trust the information that has been given to us because even though COVID is something we’ve been dealing with for almost two years now, we have shown that a large majority of the demographics can push through without having these types of mandates.”
Watch:
Back in August, United Airlines became the first to announce it would mandate vaccines, with CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart noting “We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees, but, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated.”
JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines have also recently informed their workforce that they will be required to get the vaccine.
As we noted yesterday, Anthony Fauci brazenly declared this past weekend that people are going to have to abandon the notion that they have a right to say no to the jabs, arguing that giving up control of what is injected into ones body is ‘for the greater good of society’.
Dr. Fauci's message for Canadians opposed to COVID vaccine mandates and passports: "there comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision."
When one’s livelihood and privileges depend on submission to constant monitoring, you have to wonder how long Americans will have the choice to opt out.
News reports about Britney Spears being a one-woman surveillance state are troubling on many levels. A recent New York Times investigation uncovered the details. According to a whistleblower, the pop star’s father monitored her every move, then used that information to manipulate or directly control her. This was done under the guise of a court-ordered conservatorship and implemented by Black Box, a private security firm.
The public was shocked by the degree of invasion Spears endured. But considering how thoroughly each of us is digitally tagged, tracked, and fed into the algorithmic mill, her story should be all too familiar. The only difference is, for the moment we still have a choice.
If fans in the “Free Britney” crowd are correct, then her spying father exploited and abused his own daughter for profit. It’s a warped phenomenon, difficult for normal people to imagine, but all too common in the entertainment industry. Then again, even if Britney’s father hacked her smartphone, tracked her boyfriends, and bugged her bedroom for the singer’s own good, the entire scenario is still sickening.
The desire for privacy is intrinsic to human nature. Most of us enjoy the sense we’re organic creatures exploring the world, our secrets known only to a forgiving God and the infernal Accuser. Few want to live in a prying digital landscape that’s secretly exploring us.
The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret
Skeptics are quick to dismiss privacy concerns as paranoid. “You aren’t that interesting,” they often say. Maybe it’s wishful thinking.
If regular people were not that interesting, then Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, Zoom, countless third-party data brokers, and the intelligence agencies that enjoy backdoor access wouldn’t be vacuuming up the details of our lives. If these companies were merely trying to improve their products, they wouldn’t pretend they weren’t spying—only to get caught time and time again.
It’s not that they want to know everything about you, as an individual. At least, you’d better hope not. Rather, it’s the value of our data in the aggregate that draws them.
“If artificial intelligence is the new electricity, big data is the oil that powers the generators,” Kai-Fu Lee wrote in his 2018 book “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.” The Chinese tech CEO is quite pleased to drill that oil out of our souls. From his perspective, this civilizational shift toward technocracy is “inevitable.” He’s hardly alone.
The more information that corporations, governments, employers, or stalkers can gather about our outward habits and inner worlds, the more easily they believe they can manipulate our thoughts and behavior. To the extent that machine learning systems can process this flood of data, there’s no limit to the power one can wield over any population or individual.
Under mass surveillance, we are all Britney Spears, except we can turn our bugs off — for now. As the Western approach begins to mirror China’s social credit system, where one’s livelihood and privileges depend on submission to constant monitoring, you have to wonder how long Americans will have the choice to opt-out.
We see a similar trend in the development of QR code vaccine passports in New York, implemented by biometric companies like Clear, whose open objective is to create a fully integrated bio-digital identification system.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. “Safety” is submission.
Secure in the Amazon Panopticon
No corporation has done more to normalize in-home surveillance and biometric tracking than Amazon. With one click and a few hundred bucks, anyone can become a superstar in her own personal police state.
Last week, Amazon’s subsidiary company Ring launched an invitation-only pilot for its Always Home Cam. The device is a small drone that lifts off from its countertop cradle to hover around your house along predetermined flight paths. Its purpose is to record the details of your inner sanctum with an onboard camera. At this point, Amazon is openly mocking privacy advocates.
This home drone can be synced with the Ring doorbell camera, which allows law enforcement—as well as multiple third-party trackers—to watch over your neighborhood and personal habits. Ring has contemplated adding facial recognition technology, too, but is holding off after people freaked out at the idea.
Instead, the power of facial recognition is reserved for Amazon’s new bug-eyed snoop, Astro. Not only does this wheeled creature use infrared and ultrasound to map your home, it employs a visual ID system to recognize you, your friends, and your family members.
Animated by everyone’s favorite eavesdropper, Alexa, the robot also listens to your personal conversations, ostensibly waiting for her “wake word.” You never know when you’ll need answers to life’s big questions, and besides, Amazon and variousthird-party developers might have a few questions about you.
While visiting family a few years ago, I was shocked to find an Amazon Echo on their living room shelf. As usual, they accused me of being paranoid. “Alexa,” I barked at the device, “how do you feel about Big Brother?”
“Amazon protects customers’ privacy,” it shot back, “and is very careful with sensitive information.” Something like that. At least the little monster has a sense of humor.
Perhaps the most nauseating product on offer is the Amazon One biometric payment system. Once you’ve scanned your unique palm print, Amazon links that information to your personal identity and credit card. “One way to unlock the world,” the website entices, “powered by your palm.” For the armies of germaphobes created by COVID-19 scaremongering, Amazon assures customers “you won’t have to touch anything to use it.”
Two weeks ago, Amazon One announced that Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, Co. will implement these digital palm-readers for ticketing. Savvy concert-goers can use it to enjoy expedited entry. In fact, the system is already installed in Amazon 4-Star retail outlets and Whole Foods grocery stores across the United States.
“You are in control,” the company promises. After scanning your palm at the door, ubiquitous cameras monitor your every step and every item you touch, allowing you to walk out the door without ever speaking to a human being. The only thing you leave behind is a piece of your soul.
The Data Priests Under Your Bed
In his articulate testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, the political philosopher Matthew Crawford warned about the dangers of in-home spy devices. Judging from Amazon’s recent rollouts, the only people who listened were tech developers in Seattle and Silicon Valley.
“The business rationale for the smart home,” Crawford told Congress, “is to bring the intimate patterns of life into the fold of the surveillance economy, which has a one-way mirror quality. Increasingly, every aspect of our lives—our voices, our facial expressions, our political affiliations, and intellectual predilections—are laid bare as data to be collected by companies who, for their own part, guard with military-grade secrecy the algorithms by which they use this information to determine the world that is presented to us.”
Crawford even highlighted a “smart bed” whose privacy policy once openly stated it could transmit “audio in your room.” When the world learned that Spears’s father had installed a similar device in her bedroom, it was condemned as an affront to human dignity. Somehow, normal citizens integrating bugs into their “smart home” is just a matter of efficiency and convenience.
Presently, we have the choice to purchase these devices or not. As monitoring systems become more integrated and opting out flags you as a “person of interest,” that freedom will certainly fade.
Proponents of mass surveillance often ask, “What do you have to hide?” Knowing the nature of predation, the interrogation should be reversed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a scoundrel behind closed doors or just a big dork who sings to his dog. The real question we should be asking is, “Why do you want to know?”
Why won’t they report the verified facts about this D.C. career bureaucrat’s life?
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes for Health (NIH) and one of the leading public voices during the COVID-19 pandemic will step down from his role following a number of investigative reports into Collins and his underlings.
Appointed by President Obama in 2009, Collins issued a statement this week saying: “I fundamentally believe … that no single person should serve in the position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future.”
But it is unlikely Collins’s belief in a revolving door at the NIH that has prompted the move. Rather, with pressure mounting on key public figures such as his minion Anthony Fauci and arms-length brother-in-arms Peter Daszak, it is worth looking at what the media won’t be saying about Collins this week.
National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins serves on the advisory board of a conference sponsored by a Chinese military-linked genomics firm. The D.C.-based, health industry big-wig and boss to Anthony Fauci has even referred to the controversial company’s founder as a “friend”.
BGI Genomics has been flagged by U.S. intelligence officials for its robust efforts to “collect, store and exploit biometric information” on American citizens through COVID-19 test kits. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the firm has deep ties to both the Chinese Communist Party and its military.
Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institute for Health (NIH), appears to have directly contradicted his underling Dr. Anthony Fauci in a bombshell moment from an interview with Hugh Hewitt.
The revelations further implicate those who approved U.S. grants to the lab, and the EcoHealth Alliance run by the British-born Peter Dazcak – who The National Pulse first reported on back in February.
The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has also funded several studies conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including research focused on bat coronaviruses alongside U.S.-based research groups such as the Anthony Fauci-funded EcoHealth Alliance.
Various National Institutes of Health agencies – including Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – have funded over 250 studies authored by researchers at institutions controlled by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Following a unique investigation into the origins of scientific research papers, the whopping level of collaboration with the Chinese military will further concerns in the United States that the political class has surrendered to the Chinese Communist Party. Last week it emerged that the ranking General in the U.S. Armed Forces agreed to tip off China in advance of a U.S.-led attack.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has continued to funnel millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund scientific research in conjunction with Communist China since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, including to military-controlled organizations.
Over half of the grants sent since early 2020 came from Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The National Institutes of Health, the foremost research institute under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has investigated 189 researchers for undisclosed ties to foreign countries, 93 percent of which were linked to China.
The fresh round of terminations resulted from an ongoing investigation at the taxpayer-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) into the failure of grant recipients to disclose financial ties to foreign governments.
In reality, accountability in a post-COVID era is what likely shuffled Francis Collins off from his otherwise immortal coil at the top of the NIH. Not that the corporate media would ever tell you any of that.
“I am saddened to report that Florida’s esteemed First Lady and my beloved wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer. As the mother of three young children, Casey is the centerpiece of our family and has made and impact on the lives of countless Floridians through her initiatives as First Lady,” stated Gov. DeSantis in his official letter.
“As she faces the most difficult test of her life, she will have not only my unwavering support but the support of our entire family, as well as the prayers and well wishes from Floridians across our state. Casey is a true fighter, and she will never, never, never give up.”
Ron and Casey DeSantis are very much what people could call an “alpha” couple. Casey is a former producer and has won an Emmy for her stellar coverage of the PGA tour. The pair have been married since the year 2010, and have three children aged four years, three years and 18 months, respectively.
The 41-year-old Casey DeSantis has been especially noted for her effort with organizations such as “Hope Florida- A Pathway to Prosperity, Economic Self-Sufficiency and Hope.”
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was greeted as a hero by the media and US senators eager to cut Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth down to size, but all the talk of protecting children seems to be hiding a political agenda.
Fresh off the ‘60 Minutes’ interview on Sunday and sporting a Twitter verification in record time, Haugen testified on Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee chaired by Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut).
“Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy,” Haugen told the senators.
.@FrancesHaugen: "I joined Facebook because I think Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us. But I am here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy." pic.twitter.com/nPgMQkrwdg
Haugen accused Facebook of putting “profit over safety” and compared it to tobacco companies, arguing that “a company with such frightening influence over so many people – over their deepest thoughts, feelings and behavior – needs real oversight.”
She also said that “left alone, Facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good – our common good.”
The pretext for the hearing were materials Haugen leaked to The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, outlining Facebook’s own studies that suggest Instagram and social media in general have a negative psychological effect on young girls.
Commenting on Monday’s technical problem that took Facebook – as well as Instagram and WhatsApp, which it owns – offline, Haugen quipped that “for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”
BREAKING: Facebook whistleblower says uncensored social media destabilizes democracy pic.twitter.com/NFnS4aqvxD
Haugen’s testimony hit all the right notes for the corporate media complex and Washington, from accusing Zuckerberg of having too much power and bringing up the January 6 Capitol riot and the 2020 election, to saying more government power is needed to protect children from social media addiction, which both she and the senators likened to tobacco.
She suggested Facebook suffered from “moral bankruptcy” for which it has to repent, and that government oversight would make it more profitable in the long run. She also argued against breaking it up, as the components would continue having the same problems but would be more difficult to oversee.
To hear Haugen tell it, she worked for a ‘civic integrity’ unit that was disbanded after the 2020 election. She specifically said she worked on ‘counter-espionage’, monitoring Chinese and Iranian activity on the platform – lining up another hearing about this being a “national security issue.” Yet she did not bring up Facebook’s censorship of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, for example.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone – who was also involved in the Hunter Biden cover-up affair – offered a rebuttal on Twitter, noting that Haugen “did not work on child safety or Instagram or research these issues and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook.”
As she herself just said under oath, "I don't work on it."
In one exchange Haugen argued – and Sen. Blumenthal agreed – that the government and schools need to “make established information” to help parents protect their children if Facebook doesn’t want to.
This came just a day after the Justice Department sicced the FBI onto parents criticizing school boards around the country for teaching critical race theory, calling it potential domestic terrorism.
Skeptical commentators have pointed out that Haugen’s comments lined up with CNN, MSNBC and other corporate media outlets. The conservative-leaning outlets Daily Caller and Washington Free Beacon, meanwhile, found that Haugen has been a prolific donor to Senate Democrats in particular.
Haugen is also represented by the same lawyers – and former Democrat staffers – who backed the ‘whistleblower’ in the first impeachment against President Donald Trump, and the PR agency Bryson Gillette, where the current White House press secretary Jen Psaki worked until September 2020.
The military officer facing legal consequences for speaking out against Department of Defense leaders is no longer in the brig.
Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr., whose criticism of the Afghanistan withdrawal received attention nationwide, had been in pretrial confinement in the Regional Brig for Marine Corps Installations East at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, but both sides agreed to a release, according to Capt. Sam Stephenson, a Training and Education Command spokesman.
“Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. is being released from confinement today, Oct. 5, 2021, as a result of a mutual agreement between Lt. Col. Scheller, his Defense counsel, and the Commanding General, Training Command,” said Stephenson in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“No additional details regarding the agreement may be released at this time,” he added.
Scheller gained notoriety last month when he posted a video on social media calling for accountability from military leaders for the way the Afghanistan withdrawal occurred, and he specifically referenced the ISIS-K terrorist attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 170 Afghan nationals. He posted subsequent videos detailing the consequences of the video and informing viewers of the fallout of his initial post.
He has not been charged, though there are four specific charges that will be considered during his hearing — Article 88: contempt toward officials; Article 90: willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer; Article 92: failure to obey lawful general orders; and Article 133: conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, according to a Marine Corps spokesperson.
A number of conservatives have thrown their support behind Scheller, including more than two dozen GOP lawmakers who sent a letter calling for his release from confinement, because he was critical of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal execution, though he has criticized members of both political parties, including former President Donald Trump.
“President Trump. I was told by everyone to kiss the ring because of your following and power,” he said in a Facebook post last Saturday. “I refuse. While I respect your foreign policy positions, I hate how you divided the country. I don’t need or want your help. You do not have the ability to pull US together.”
The Pipe Hitter Foundation, an organization created by Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL pardoned by President Trump after being convicted of a war crime, has raised more than $2.5 million on Scheller’s behalf.
Delaware saw massive “fraudulent” votes being submitted in the 2020 election and nursing homes that had way more votes submitted than people who lived there, according to 2020 Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Lauren Witzke and a memo from Patriots for Delaware that has been obtained by NATIONAL FILE.
Lauren Witzke: “Preliminary Audits of the Delaware 2020 elections are damning. Only 10% of the votes have been audited and they’ve already found over 20k fraudulent ballots. Internal polling before the elections were EXTREMELY close. They couldn’t let Joe Biden’s home state seem even remotely competitive while they were busy stealing the swing states- would have raised a few eyebrows. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s looking like I pulled in at least 47% of the vote- I maybe even won. Thank you to Seth Keshel’s Team for all of their hard work. More on this to come. Stay tuned!”
According to a Patriots for Delaware memo written by Jennifer Cooke: “Patriots for Delaware held a public meeting on Sept. 28 where they relayed some initial findings in reference to their 2020 election canvas that have raised more questions than answers. Not only did dead people vote, there also seems to be a high number of votes coming from some nursing homes who don’t have nearly that many beds. There are 296 votes that came from a nursing home with only 94 beds. That’s 315% votes coming from a facility that is rarely at full occupancy. There were several other nursing homes that reported over 100%, while most facilities in the state reported anywhere from 0% to 75% votes in relation to available beds. Where are all the people that voted from these nursing homes? How could the nursing homes have been that full, occupancy wise, given the Covid-19 protocol was to lock the facilities down and keep our elderly socially distanced and quarantined? It was also revealed that hundreds upon hundreds of votes from “Uniformed and overseas citizens” had a mailing/residential address listed as the addresses of the three county elections offices in the state. The election law clearly states that these particular voters’ addresses should be listed as their last residential address. People don’t live at the state-owned Carvel building in Wilmington. Are these votes legal?
Another subject that is called into question is the voter rolls. Almost 30 thousand voters were added to the voter rolls in the months leading up to the Nov. 3 election. Oddly enough, over 11 thousand of those voters were removed from the rolls in August 2021 alone. The state only provides month-to-month data on voter registration totals. Any added or removed voters, on a day-to-day basis, would not be apparent in the month-to-month data. Why were so many voters added to the rolls starting a few months before the election and why are they being removed now? Why would 11 thousand people unregister to vote in one month? Were the elections offices “cleaning up” their voter rolls? If so, why wait until after a historic election to remove voters?
Last, is the astronomically high 47,205 ballots sent to adjudication. That amounts to 25% of all mail-in/absentee ballots cast in the state. The FEC allows .0008% of ballots to be sent to adjudication. Clearly something was wrong during the ES&S tabulation machine scanning of these mail-in/absentee ballots to cause so many of them to be deemed unable to read. Furthermore, according to Delaware’s election law, each ballot needed a Republican, a Democrat, and an election judge to view them and decide the voter’s intent. What kind of man hours would it take for elections officials to view every one of those adjudicated ballots? The mail in ballots were not supposed to be opened or counted until Election Day. How did that many ballots get processed in such a short amount of time? Did any of the officials question or raise concern for the amount of adjudications? Were the ES&S tabulation machines calibrated correctly? Were the machines certified? Who certified them? We the People of Delaware deserve to know what happened on Nov. 3, 2020. We should have complete confidence in our elections given that a FREE and FAIR election is the cornerstone of this Constitutional Republic. Our elected representatives and appointed Board of Elections, have a duty to We The People that they have not been living up to. We have questions. We want answers. We will not settle for “There’s nothing I can do” any longer. Audit Delaware.”
Northwell Health, New York’s (NY) largest health care provider, announced they have fired 1,400 workers due to the state’s vaccine mandate.
Northwell Health has over 76,000 employees and is actively filling the positions left vacant by employees who for various reasons declined to comply with the state’s mandate.
“Northwell believes that having a fully vaccinated workforce is an important measure in our duty to protect the health and safety of our staff, our patients, and the communities we serve,” a company statement reads.
But officials with the health care provider said the goal was “to comply with the New York state mandate and to get people vaccinated, not to get people terminated.”
Still, they didn’t seem all that sympathetic to those who just lost their jobs saying they are “proud to announce” that by firing the unvaccinated workers, “our workforce … is 100 percent vaccinated.”
Health care workers who are terminated due to refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate are not eligible for unemployment insurance in New York state unless they provide a doctor-approved request for medical accommodation.
Northwell Health fires 1,400 workers due to vaccine mandate, remaining 76K got shots https://t.co/stOOsTmk1V
At around the same time they were bragging about their staff being fully vaccinated by firing hundreds of people, Northwell Health was also posting about how inclusive their organization is.
In a job announcement on their company site as well as the job information site LinkedIn, Northwell bragged about creating a welcoming environment for all.
“Northwell Health is focused on creating a welcoming environment where all employees have a sense of belonging,” they write.
Everybody is welcome, everybody belongs – just not people who have natural immunity from the virus or have other medical or personal concerns about being forced to vaccinate.
The company statement goes on to thank “the vast majority of our employees who did the right thing and got vaccinated.”
Healthcare workers burn their scrubs outside Northwell Staten Island University Hospital in an act of protest against the state mandating Covid vaccines on them without exceptions even for those who have recovered. Video by @ScooterCasterNY: pic.twitter.com/jaHtQZJ1YN
Democrat New York Governor Kathy Hochul began her tenure with a state emergency of her own doing.
Her vaccine mandate created a medical crisis in the throes of a pandemic that could lead to tens of thousands of health care workers being fired in NY state.
“Even health care leaders who support vaccination and vaccine mandates say that the requirement exacerbated the New York health care sector’s pre-existing condition: staffing shortages, which existed before the pandemic but have become a full-blown crisis amid the outbreak.”
Pretty impressive for an unelected governor who only ascended to the position because the previous guy was so incompetent that he single-handedly sent thousands of seniors to their death at the beginning of the pandemic.
Tens of thousands of health care workers across New York state could lose their jobs as soon as today, the state-imposed deadline for them to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. https://t.co/Cd13ENayPy
In addition to the 1,400 workers fired by Northwell, hundreds of health care workers at Albany Medical Center have already been suspended and will lose their jobs as well if they do not comply with the NY vaccine mandate this week.
The prospect of a shortage of health professionals is so dire in New York that Hochul entertained enlisting the National Guard, foreign workers, or out-of-state medical workers to fill the void.
It is a crisis of her own creation, a stunning ‘own goal’ one wouldn’t have expected to see on a Saturday Night Live skit, let alone by the leader of the Empire State.
Hochul responded to the crisis with all the cuddly warmth of a viper, suggesting the unvaccinated nurses or medical workers weren’t adhering to their oath and that “we will be replacing people.”
Governors are “replaceable” too : NY governor refusing to budge on vaccine mandate for nurses: You're replaceable https://t.co/ed1KxDBdNj
While the vaccine mandate is meant to show Hochul is super-serious about getting the pandemic under control, the fact that she exacerbated a medical crisis through her own ignorance proved otherwise.
Her next move further proved she shouldn’t be taken seriously on any level.
Hochul invoked God, struck a Jesus Christ pose, and urged her “apostles” to go out and get people vaccinated.
She even wore her rosary beads, er … Her ‘vaxed’ necklace whilst preaching.
Thousands of NY’s healthcare workers are being fired due to Hochul’s vaccine mandate. Intoxicated with power, she thinks so highly of herself & her new position Hochul says she’s our new intermediary to the highest religious powers in the universe & declared NYers her Apostles. pic.twitter.com/SwnonfUOtt
“God did answer our prayers,” Hochul said at a Brooklyn megachurch last Sunday. “He made the smartest men and women — the scientists, the doctors, the researchers — he made them come up with a vaccine!”
She added that “we must say, ‘Thank you, God! Thank you!’”
Speaking in a tone you’d expect to encounter at a daycare, Hochul then suggested people not getting the vaccine are unintelligent.
“All of you — yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones — but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. … You know who they are,” she told the church.
“I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, ‘We owe this to each other! We love each other!’”
Love each other – except those stupid unvaccinated people.
Love each other – except those nurses who don’t adhere to their so-called oath.
It’s not that New Yorkers who want to make their own decisions on the vaccine are ignorant, it’s that the people in power truly are.
Hochul is Exhibit A.
What the governor is failing to take into account is the myriad of people that have already been infected with COVID-19 who now have natural immunity.
Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, writes in The Washington Post that “more than 15 studies have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus.”
Hochul still wants those people to be forced to get the jab or lose their jobs. That’s ignorant.
Getting the vaccine on top of natural immunity for added antibody protection? Why stop there? What’s to say these health care workers shouldn’t also be forced to get a booster? Or two boosters? Why not a booster every Tuesday and Friday? Where will the line be drawn?
Hochul is also ignoring those with legitimate medical concerns that they personally believe could be amplified by the vaccine.
That’s ignorant.
And she’s unfairly targeting the black and Latino community with the vaccine mandate. As of mid-August, the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates roughly 40% of Black people and 45% of Latinos had been at least partially vaccinated compared to 50% of white people
Hochul’s vaccine mandate will disproportionately affect the minority community to a greater extent. That’s ignorant.
NY’s vaccine mandate has everything to do with power and nothing to do with science or empathy for fellow citizens.
Facebook issued a statement late Monday explaining what caused the outage across its platforms lasted nearly six hours.
“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication,” the statement said. “This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.”
Facebook indicated that there’s “no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime.”
The outage affected Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus.
The company’s chief technology officer and spokesman apologized on Twitter “to the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us.”
UPDATE: To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.
Facebook services coming back online now – may take some time to get to 100%. To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I'm sorry.
Facebook acknowledged the “impact” such outages have on people and businesses across the world and said they’re “working to understand more about what happened today so we can continue to make our infrastructure more resilient.”
Facebook is too powerful, morally bankrupt and in need of government oversight, ‘whistleblower’ Haugen tells Senate
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was greeted as a hero by the media and US senators eager to cut Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth down to size, but all the talk of protecting children seems to be hiding a political agenda.
Fresh off the ‘60 Minutes’ interview on Sunday and sporting a Twitter verification in record time, Haugen testified on Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee chaired by Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut).
“Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy,” Haugen told the senators.
Haugen accused Facebook of putting “profit over safety” and compared it to tobacco companies, arguing that “a company with such frightening influence over so many people – over their deepest thoughts, feelings and behavior – needs real oversight.”
She also said that “left alone, Facebook will continue to make choices that go against the common good – our common good.”
The pretext for the hearing were materials Haugen leaked to The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, outlining Facebook’s own studies that suggest Instagram and social media in general have a negative psychological effect on young girls.
Commenting on Monday’s technical problem that took Facebook – as well as Instagram and WhatsApp, which it owns – offline, Haugen quipped that “for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”
Haugen’s testimony hit all the right notes for the corporate media complex and Washington, from accusing Zuckerberg of having too much power and bringing up the January 6 Capitol riot and the 2020 election, to saying more government power is needed to protect children from social media addiction, which both she and the senators likened to tobacco.
She suggested Facebook suffered from “moral bankruptcy” for which it has to repent, and that government oversight would make it more profitable in the long run. She also argued against breaking it up, as the components would continue having the same problems but would be more difficult to oversee.
To hear Haugen tell it, she worked for a ‘civic integrity’ unit that was disbanded after the 2020 election. She specifically said she worked on ‘counter-espionage’, monitoring Chinese and Iranian activity on the platform – lining up another hearing about this being a “national security issue.” Yet she did not bring up Facebook’s censorship of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, for example.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone – who was also involved in the Hunter Biden cover-up affair – offered a rebuttal on Twitter, noting that Haugen “did not work on child safety or Instagram or research these issues and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook.”
In one exchange Haugen argued – and Sen. Blumenthal agreed – that the government and schools need to “make established information” to help parents protect their children if Facebook doesn’t want to.
This came just a day after the Justice Department sicced the FBI onto parents criticizing school boards around the country for teaching critical race theory, calling it potential domestic terrorism.
Skeptical commentators have pointed out that Haugen’s comments lined up with CNN, MSNBC and other corporate media outlets. The conservative-leaning outlets Daily Caller and Washington Free Beacon, meanwhile, found that Haugen has been a prolific donor to Senate Democrats in particular.
Haugen is also represented by the same lawyers – and former Democrat staffers – who backed the ‘whistleblower’ in the first impeachment against President Donald Trump, and the PR agency Bryson Gillette, where the current White House press secretary Jen Psaki worked until September 2020.