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New Health Order Makes the COVID Vax Essentially Mandatory for TK-12 School Employees

The COVID-19 rules and regulations that TK-12 schools must follow often feel like a warped and ever-changing version of the childhood game: Simon Says. “Simon says to get a vaccine. Simon says to wear a mask. Simon says to wash your hands while singing the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. Simon says to stand apart. Simon says you can stand together if you are wearing a mask. Now, take off your mask. Wait! Put your mask back on because Simon did not say to take off your mask.”

Now, pretend that Simon is Governor Newsom and that the latest command is not part of a game, but a new public health order, announced at a press conference on August 11, 2021 to take effect the next day on August 12, 2021.

Under the new public health order, California has become the first state to require proof of a COVID-19 vaccination from ALL public and private school employees – think teachers, custodians, principals, etc. – serving students from transitional kindergarten through Grade 12. Beginning October 15, 2021, those who are not vaccinated must submit to weekly COVID testing. (Note: the order does not apply to home schools, child care, or higher education.)

The California Department of Public Health’s new order uses peer pressure, discomfort, and convenience, to essentially coerce private and public-school employees into getting vaccinated. For instance:

  • Peer pressure comes into play through the mask, a visible marker of one’s vaccination status, which should be protected under HIPAA. All TK-12 employee must wear a mask when indoors with children, but when indoors with adults, masks are only required for the unvaccinated. Sure, a vaccinated individual could opt to wear a mask, but in meetings, most do not. With numerous meetings – especially meetings about the ever-changing COVID requirements – it becomes very apparent who is vaccinated and who is not.
  • Discomfort refers to the actual COVID test for the unvaccinated. I have personally had to submit to several nasal swab and saliva tests, and both were awkward and uncomfortable. The saliva test may seem like the better option, but it is not. The individual has to repeatedly spit – perhaps 10 to 20 times – and fill a small vile with saliva. The first time I took the saliva test, the technician handed the vile back to me and told me to produce more saliva because I had “too many bubbles.” Gross. And embarrassing. I was literally spit shamed.
  • Finally, convenience eventually runs people down. How many weekly COVID tests can a person take before finally trading the swab or vile for the prick of a needle?

The rationale behind the public health order is partially due to the Delta variant. While I can see the reasoning here, I do not like that the California Department of Public Health is essentially forcing public and private school workers to get vaccinated. I am not against vaccines. In fact, I am thankful that my loved ones and I will not be crippled by polio or die from measles. Vaccines are nothing new to schools, and a variety of vaccinations are required before students start transitional or traditional kindergarten.

In fact, I even made the decision to get the COVID vaccine, which may be surprising given my position in this article. I chose the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because it is not an mRNA vaccine and only requires a single dose. I will say, however, that a big part of my decision to get vaccinated was due to reasons such as: my position in a public school district; the desire to continue to work with students amidst ever-changing regulations; the majority of staff who are vaccinated; and the fact that I contracted COVID and unknowingly exposed my staff to the virus. No one asked me to get vaccinated, but I felt a very strong and unspoken pressure to get vaccinated.

And I am picky about what I put into my body. Very picky. Sometimes I wonder about individuals who tell me that they will not put the vaccine into their body, but they regularly fill their bodies with sugary foods, trans fats, hard alcohol, prepackaged junk food, fast food, sugary sodas, diet sodas filled with artificial everything, and the list goes on and on. Then there’s me, with my salmon, nuts, vegetables, yoga, running, weights, and people often asking me about my health routine. To me, it sends a bit of a mixed message when a person clearly isn’t concerned about heart disease, diabetes, or a myriad of other health issues, but is firm in their resolve about not being COVID vaccinated. Then again, it goes both ways. I see vaccinated individuals who are very committed to COVID-related health items, but not diseases that they are far more likely to die from given their family history and/or lifestyle choices.

But that’s me being judgmental, which is not good. What is good? Choice. The COVID-19 vaccines are new and were developed under unprecedented time constraints and without long-term testing. Plus, 99% of those who contract COVID survive, and some people experience side effects from the various vaccines.

At the end of the day, there should be a choice: get the COVID vaccine or do not get it. It is deeply concerning to me that the freedom to choose is being eroded for our TK-12 school employees by the California Department of Public Health.


“Simon Says” get a vaccine, and if you do not obey, life will be made increasingly uncomfortable. It is not a game, and it is certainly not fun.

Deep Blue States Continue to Hold the US Economy Down

Monday’s unemployment numbers show blue states are the leaders in the nation’s unemployment.

Several commentators have already noted that Monday’s State Employment and Unemployment release from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that eight states had unemployment rates above 7 percent:

  • – Nevada – 7.7 percent
  • – California – 7.7 percent
  • – New Mexico – 7.7 percent
  • – New York – 7.7 percent
  • – Connecticut – 7.3 percent
  • – Hawaii – 7.3 percent
  • – New Jersey – 7.3 percent
  • – Illinois – 7.1 percent

These unemployment rates are much higher than the nation’s overall unemployment rate of 5.4 percent reported earlier this month.

Each state is “deep blue,” with Democratic Party governors and legislatures. None of them are among the 25 states which ended the federal government’s overly generous extended unemployment benefits program in June or early July.

A review of the performance of these eight states since February 2020, the last month before the pandemic lockdowns began, indicates that they have hurt the overall US economy far more than seen in the awful unemployment rates above.

Three other states – Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – deserve to be included in the list of economic dishonorables. All have experienced deep-blue governance during the pandemic, and their results are about as awful as the eight already-identified states.

All eleven states are far behind the rest of the nation in reaching their pre-pandemic employment levels, as seen below:

While the rest of the US is less than 2 percent away from getting back to February 2020’s peak employment levels, the eleven states experiencing the worst blue-state pandemic governance, at 6.8 percent, are collectively 3-1/2 times worse off.

Put another way, if the eleven laggard states were performing as well as the rest of the country, the nationwide employment deficit compared to the pre-pandemic peak would be fewer than 3 million jobs instead of the 5.7 million jobs seen above.

In other words, 2.7 million more Americans are out of work because 11 states have failed to allow their citizens the level of economic and personal freedom generally seen in most (but unfortunately not all) of the rest of the US.

60% of Young Christians Believe Some Very Anti-Christian Things About Salvation, Survey Finds

A new survey reveals a shocking statistic about young Christians. More than 60 percent of born-again Christians between the ages of 18 – 39 believe that Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad are all equal in regards to a path to salvation. 

Probe Ministries recently released the results of its Religious Views & Practices Survey showed a “striking decline” in religious beliefs and practices over the last ten years.

The survey shows a majority of Born-again Christians are ignorant about the basic teachings of their faith. 

“The Probe survey shows that even Born-again Christians can have a false view of Jesus Christ and embrace a pluralistic worldview,” said Probe Ministries President, Kerby Anderson. “Pastors and church leaders just can’t assume any longer that members of their church or Christian organization have a biblical worldview.”

Less than half of those surveyed strongly agreed that Jesus died to redeem us and will return to save us. 

Other Findings

The survey also found: 

  • The number of young adults age 18 – 39 who are Born-again Christians with a basic biblical worldview has dropped from almost 15 percent of the population to near 5 percent, according to the study.
  • When asked if Jesus sinned like other people during his life on earth, 30 percent of Born-again Protestants either agreed or weren’t sure. The number of Born-again Christians supporting that belief increased by nearly 25 percent.
  • Nearly 80 percent of young adult Catholics are uncertain if Jesus lived a sinless life on earth.
  • And the present number of adults under the age of 40 who choose Atheist, Agnostic, or “Nothing in Particular” when asked about their position on faith or association with the church is rising to nearly 50 percent.

“We have to continue to explain the cost of salvation, that there is no way to salvation other than through the sacrificial and atoning death of a sinless Christ. That no one can come to the Father except through the Son, but also that anyone may come through him,” Anderson said. 

The survey was conducted among 3,106 Americans aged 18 through 55. 

As CBN News reported in June, the Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview conducted a nationwide survey in an effort to find out whether people possess a biblical worldview and how they seek to integrate that into their life. 

Among the 1,000 American adults interviewed across the nation, 51 percent said they have a biblical worldview. However, the survey revealed big inconsistencies between what they believe and what the Bible teaches.

And the polling revealed seven out of ten adults believe that God does (or might) exist, 78 percent said that God cares “a lot” about what they believe and does in relation to every measure of society.

The Era of ‘Zuckbucks’ in Florida Election Administration Ends

The last of three Florida counties that took grant monies from a left-wing activist group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to help administer the 2020 elections has returned the remaining funds to the group after a new state law banned such grants, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, supporters of President Joe Biden and Democratic Party candidates, grabbed headlines during the last election cycle by giving as much as $400 million to the Chicago-based Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL).

CTCL in turn then distributed the money in the form of grants to jurisdictions across the United States purportedly to help those governments hire more staff, buy mail-in ballot processing machinery, and pursue other measures they considered necessary to administer the elections during the ongoing pandemic. Critics complained that CTCL’s grants favored Democrats because they tended to go to the electoral apparatuses in Democratic strongholds and that the funds were part of an attempt to unfairly influence the outcome of the elections.

“The return of this money to the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) is a victory for election integrity,” said PILF President J. Christian Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney.

Indianapolis-based PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity,” saying that it exists “to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

“Zuckbucks were the biggest factor, juicing blue areas in 2020,” Adams said. “A private citizen should not be allowed to influence how our elections are run. At the Public Interest Legal Foundation, we are proud to have played a role in ensuring that this money will not be spent to influence the Florida elections in 2022.”

After the elections last year, Florida banned private money from being used to administer elections in the Sunshine State.

On May 6, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the state’s new election integrity law that in addition to prohibiting the use of private funds to administer elections, also banned ballot harvesting and the mass mailing of ballots, and strengthened voter identification requirements.

“Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections,” DeSantis said at the time. “Floridians can rest assured that our state will remain a leader in ballot integrity. Elections should be free and fair, and these changes will ensure this continues to be the case in the Sunshine State.”

Soon after the law was enacted, 2 of the counties to receive CTCL grants –Leon and Alachua—returned the portion of the grants that went unspent to CTCL, but Palm Beach County held out until earlier this month.

Lauren Bowman, a spokeswoman for PILF, told The Epoch Times in an interview that Palm Beach County officials initially did not respond to letters PILF sent them.

PILF then sued the county, but the county took the position that there was nothing in the statute that compelled it to return the money, she said.

PILF and the county went back and forth but the county eventually changed its position after the organization pointed out that the county was benefiting from the remaining grant money because it was accruing bank interest, Bowman said.

Palm Beach County acknowledged in an Aug. 5 email to PILF that was obtained by The Epoch Times that it was returning $612,089.24 to CTCL.

The new state law will promote electoral integrity, Bowman said.

“Elections are meant to be run by tax dollars,” she said. “They’re not supposed to be influenced by billionaires in Silicon Valley.”

Herschel Walker files to run for US Senate in Georgia

Former University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker has filed to run for U.S. Senate in Georgia, becoming the most prominent Republican to line up to challenge incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).

Walker, a Texas resident, was long rumored as a potential candidate and was heavily lobbied by former President Donald Trump to move to Georgia and run for Senate. Earlier this month, Walker registered to vote there, leading many to suspect that an official announcement of his candidacy was imminent.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported that Walker filed with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday. A public statement announcing his candidacy is expected within days.

Trump was an early supporter of Walker for Senate, saying in March he would be “unstoppable” as a candidate.

But some state Republicans have expressed concerns that Walker, as a political outsider who has never run for office, may not be ready or able to defeat Warnock, who is the top-fundraising politician in the United States. As of his most recent FEC filing, Warnock has raised more than $34 million and is sitting on a formidable war chest of $10.5 million cash on hand. The Democratic pastor from Atlanta has earned a national reputation as a champion of election reforms favored by progressives, fueling his popularity on the left. He will be a top target for Republicans and a priority for Democrats to defend in the upcoming midterm elections.

Walker, 59, will have high name recognition in the state as a Heisman Trophy winner and star running back for Georgia Bulldogs, and a 12-year career in the NFL. But his political inexperience and unknown positions on the issues are giving some state conservatives pause.

Also, both Walker’s Republican primary opponents and Democratic opposition researchers will make an issue of his struggle with mental illness. Walker has been open about his battle with dissociative identity disorder, writing about how his illness has impacted his personal life and contributed to suicidal thoughts in his 2008 book, “Breaking Free: My Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

A recent Associated Press report dug into Walker’s past and unearthed public records about his business dealings and his divorce with ex-wife Cindy Grossman that were previously unreported.

“The documents detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior,” the AP reported. Walker did not respond to the AP’s request for comment on the report.

Walker is already under attack from at least one primary opponent. Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black released an ad in early August painting Walker as a carpetbagger. He further said in a statement that Walker should “Move here, pay taxes here, register and vote in some elections and learn what Georgians have on their minds,” if he wanted to run for Senate. His comments followed a Washington Examiner report that before 2020 Walker had not voted in any election since 2003, including the 2016 presidential election.

Military veteran Kelvin King, a black surrogate for Trump, and former Navy SEAL and Trump administration official Latham Saddler are also running in the Republican primary scheduled on May 24, 2022.

Watch: Kamala Harris Humiliates Herself, America During Overseas Trip

When it comes to the catastrophe transpiring in Afghanistan, it appears that the Biden administration never runs out of ways to embarrass itself.

The latest humiliation comes from Vice President Kamala Harris during her Asia trip.

In Singapore on Monday, as C-SPAN recorded, Harris was part of a joint news conference with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Naturally, she had to field a question about the Afghanistan debacle, and naturally, she bumbled it.

The moment occurred shortly after the news conference was opened up to questions. A Reuters reporter noted how Afghans have been trampled and have died as they attempted to flee the country that American forces had fought in for two decades. Additionally, the reporter stated there are still American citizens stuck in the capital city of Kabul.

She then said she understood that Harris agreed with the Afghanistan withdrawal, but wanted to know the vice president’s assessment of what went wrong.

In her response, Harris was typically evasive, saying she understood why the question was asked and that she thought there was going to be “plenty of time to analyze” what happened regarding the troop withdrawal.

She said that at the moment, though, the Biden administration is “singularly focused on evacuating American citizens, Afghans who worked with us and Afghans who are vulnerable” such as children and women. Harris said the administration feels a deep commitment, and the U.S. certainly has a responsibility, in making it a priority to make sure that those who helped America are safe.

Boilerplate comments from an official representing the Biden White House, in other words. A news release would have claimed as much.

Then things seemed to get tougher for the VP.

“I mean the president has, I think, shown great emotion in expressing, uh, sadness about some of the images we have seen, but we cannot be, um, in any way, um, distracted in any way from what must be our primary mission right now, which is evacuating people from that region who, who deserve to be evacuated,” Harris said.

While the stumbling “uhs” and “ums” were bad enough, Harris’ bearing was even worse. Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson even wrote on Twitter that it appeared Harris needed to reference her notes in order to explain how Biden feels.

It’s unclear whether Harris was actually checking her notes, as Johson wrote, or was merely stumbling with an answer because she knew she had to choose her words carefully. But either way, the moment was not reassuring.

Pentagon Drawing Down Forces from Afghanistan to Meet August 31st Deadline

The U.S. military is continuing to draw down its forces from Afghanistan ahead of the August 31, 2021, deadline, according to defense officials on Tuesday.

Defense officials confirmed to Breitbart News that the Pentagon has withdrawn some troops from Afghanistan who were scheduled to be withdrawn by President Joe Biden’s deadline of August 31, but said that the units that were surged to the region to assist in the evacuation are still in the country as of now.

The Taliban has warned that it would not agree to an extension of that deadline.

In recent days, Biden administration officials have been reluctant to give the number of Americans still left in the country, saying they do not have a perfect count because some Americans did not register with the U.S. government when coming in or going out.

They have also been reluctant to say with any specificity how many Americans have been evacuated.

However, the Pentagon said Tuesday that approximately 4,000 Americans have been evacuated, of the approximately 58,700 evacuated since the Taliban took over the country on August 14.

Democratic-led House authorizes $3.5 trillion of spending as national debt climbs to $29 trillion

Pelosi was ultimately able to secure yes votes from nine moderate House Democrats for the resolution which expands the social safety net in the U.S. with new federal programs.

The Democratic-led House on Tuesday authorized $3.5 trillion of spending in a party-line vote, as the national debt climbs to a record $29 trillion.

The final vote was 220-212. Of the members voting, 96 lawmakers submitted proxy letters to allow them to cast their votes remotely under a system the House adopted at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Using budget reconciliation allowed Democrats to bypass the filibuster in the Senate and push through the $3.5 trillion resolution without votes from Republicans in the 50-50 Senate. Democrats adopted the same strategy to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which was the second largest stimulus bill in U.S. history.

The resolution authorizes $3.5 trillion in spending on new programs like universal pre-K, tuition free community college, support for child care, Medicaid expansion, legal status for certain categories of illegal immigrants and other provisions. The formal legislative language of the reconciliation bill has not been drafted yet. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was ultimately able to secure yes votes from nine moderate House Democrats who were hesitant to vote on a $3.5 trillion resolution before voting on the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. 

As part of the resolution authorizing the $3.5 trillion, Pelosi included a Sept. 27th deadline for a vote on the separate $1.2 trillion Senate-passed bill, which garnered support from moderates such as New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus. 

Ahead of the vote, a fiscal watchdog group urged Democrats to oppose the resolution, estimating that it will result in $1.75 trillion of borrowing and add to the national debt. So far in the fiscal year, the deficit is $2.54 trillion. According to Treasury data, the national debt is approaching $29 trillion. 

Greta Thunberg’s Lack of Cultural Literacy Rears its Head

If you claim to be a subject matter expert on something, then you should at least know about the pivotal works, written and filmed, that have been done on that subject. Granted, little Ms. Greta was only three years old when the “seminal” work on the climate crisis, Al Gore’s, An Inconvenient Truth, was all the rage. But still, this take of hers is kind of… well… ignorant.

From Variety:

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg has said more stories need to be told about the climate change crisis.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Tuesday alongside Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, Thunberg encouraged attendees to turn their attention to the environment in their work.

“I know so many — whether it is artists, storytellers, journalists — who tell me they really want to write about [the climate crisis], they really want to make stories about this, report about this, make movies about it, make art about this, but that they don’t really have that support in order to do that,” she said. “So I think yes, there’s a big lack of storytelling when it comes to the climate crisis, whether it is fictional or whether it is reflecting the reality as it looks like today.”

“I think if we would start writing about this, if we were making stories about this, I think there would be a demand on for that,” Thunberg added. “We underestimate interest in the climate crisis.”

I guess part of the problem with having obsessive-compulsive disorder and being fixated on traveling the world since you were 15 years old to advocate for climate change is that you miss out on a lot of life, and a lot of education that cannot be found in books. Films are a part of our cultural landscape, and our cultural literacy. Think about quotes that are part of our common parlance:

“Here’s looking at you, kid”

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

“Shaken, not stirred.”

“You complete me.”

“Yada, Yada.”

“I’ll be back.”

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

“You are in the Bell Jar!”

“E.T. phone home.”

“He’s just not that into you.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson.”

“Wax on, wax off.”

You get it. Unless you’re Amish or one of those other religions that eschew anything secular, you are steeped in the images, the dialogue, and the art of filmmaking by the time you are five, if not before that.

The fact that she even made this comment shows that Greta’s pop culture education is obviously abysmal. Since Gore’s 2006 propaganda piece, there have probably been hundreds of films over the past 15 years that have focused on the global warming climate change crisis. Maybe if they’d decide on a name to call it, it might help.

Just how many more of these films do we really need?

Even before An Inconvenient Truth, which was strictly a documentary, director Roland Emmerich attempted to dramatize the climate crisis in the 2004 dramatic film The Day After Tomorrow. It was as deep, and dark, as it was boring. So, perhaps easy to forget.

Then there’s the 2006 documentary, A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, because who needs fossil fuels. The 2007 documentary, The 11th Hour, which actually just didn’t tell you how terrible you are for occupying the earth, but offered “practical” solutions on how you can preserve the earth and lower your carbon footprint.

From 2014-2016, The National Geographic channel did an entire series called, Years of Living Dangerously, that focused on the broad spectrum issues caused by climate change: Increased hurricanes, melting ice caps, those poor polar bears, and drought. Did I mention polar bears?

In 2017, Director Dean Devlin tried the dramatic route again with, Geostorm, where a dashing, young satellite designer played by Gerard Butler, works feverishly to save the world from a horrific storm that is caused by our climate excesses. It’s got Gerard Butler, so maybe… nah, never mind!

Also in 2017, Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, where people are shrunk to tiny versions of themselves in order to learn to use less resources, was supposed to make the subject matter less heavy and more approachable. Since most people have never heard of it, that was obviously an epic fail.

A 2017 New York Times article had this to say about the dearth of filmmaking focused on the climate crisis:

So, said Mr. Hoffman, the University of Michigan professor, we need “more movies, more TV, more music.”

“We have to touch people’s hearts on this,” he said. “It’s critical.”

Four years later, and Ms. Greta Thunberg is bemoaning the same thing.

Although agreeing with Thunberg, Nesbo acknowledged the topic is “not an easy sell,” particularly because we are in the middle of the climate crisis with no idea how it will end.

“If you look at all the crises in the world, you see that much of the storytelling doesn’t take place until after the events,” he said. “If you look at, for example, the Vietnam War, the wave of movies about the trauma of that war didn’t come until the late ‘70s, long after the war. During the Vietnam War there wasn’t many movies made about that. So I think that this is like a crisis, it would be easier to tell the story if we could see an end, or if it was behind us.”

When you’re watching the tragedy of incompetence and failure that is occurring in Afghanistan, an existential crisis like climate change kind of gets shifted to the background. And for some people, an existential crisis is not being able to pay the rent, and that is happening more often than not.

Or, maybe people are just tired of being preached to, especially at the movies.

Just a thought.

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