Ohio U.S. Rep. Joyce Proposes End to Head Start Vaccine Requirement

U.S. Representatives Dave Joyce (R-OH-14) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA-1) are seeking an end to the COVID-19-vaccine mandate affecting workers at Head Start facilities. 

The federal Head Start program was founded in 1965 and provides numerous early-learning, wellness and parenting-support services to families with children ages five and younger who receive public assistance or have incomes below the poverty line. The program serves more than 800,000 children nationwide including 33,241 in Ohio and roughly 1,500 in Joyce’s district. 

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Wisconsin Senator Johnson Presses FAA on Vaccine Effects

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is asking the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide information about the effects that COVID-19 vaccines may have had on numerous aviation professionals and the agency’s response to those effects. 

Johnson wrote a letter to FAA Acting Administrator Billy Nolen and Office of Aerospace Medicine Federal Air Surgeon Susan Northrup last week requesting an investigation into the conditions of commercial pilots Greg Pierson, Bob Snow and Wil Wolfe. The three were all in their 50s or 60s and the latter two received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while Pierson got the Pfizer shot. The senator also wants investigations to determine vaccine effects on agricultural pilot Cody Flint and air-traffic controller Hayley Lopez, respectively 33 and 29, who both obtained the Pfizer jab. 

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Ivy League Study: Boosters, COVID-19 ‘Rebounds’ Fuel Skepticism of Federal Narratives

As the nation’s most powerful and twice-boosted infectious disease doctor battles a COVID-19 “rebound” two weeks after testing positive, new research from the public health schools at Harvard and Yale suggests the boosted fared worse against the first Omicron subvariant than the non-boosted.

The FDA is so alarmed by the “waning effectiveness” of boosters, whose formulation is still based on the ancestral Wuhan strain, that it asked manufacturers Thursday to add a “spike protein component” from the fourth and fifth Omicron subvariants to this fall’s boosters.

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Doctors Question Kids’ Vax as U.K. Research Shows Minuscule COVID-19 Risk

The quality of evidence for the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) of COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months is drawing scrutiny from high-profile doctors and academics, some of whom are asking the White House not to pressure parents to vaccinate.

With CDC seroprevalence data from February finding 75% of minors had natural immunity, more attention is going to the risk/benefit calculation of vaccines for the age group at lowest risk from COVID.

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Peer-Reviewed Paper Shows Significant Fertility Risks for Men Who Get the Pfizer COVID Vaccine

A peer-reviewed paper released on Friday shows large decreases in sperm counts among men after the second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine, with the decline continuing for over five months in many cases.

The study, published in the medical journal Andrology, confirms that the mRNA shots have significant fertility risks for men, independent journalist Alex Berenson reported on his Unreported Truths Substack.

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Commentary: Coverage of One Million COVID Deaths Must Include the Pandemic of Bad State Responses

This week, the United States officially hit the sad mark of one million COVID-19 deaths. The mainstream media coverage has detailed how this death toll has varied based on age, race, and vaccination status. However, it has conspicuously ignored how these COVID-19 deaths have occurred independently of differing state policies regarding economic and education restrictions.

Many Democrat-run states imposed severe restrictions in 2020 and 2021 that did nothing to stop the virus and much to harm small businesses and ordinary Americans. Job Creators Network called on policymakers to “flatten the fear” when it became clear the virus couldn’t be controlled by hiding at home or a big government response, yet we were ignored by blue-state officials. Any reckoning of the nation’s COVID response at one million deaths must incorporate these unforced errors that exacerbated the pandemic’s wrath.

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Commentary: Pharma Giant’s Mandate Makes Ex-Workers of Vaccine Objectors

Eli Lilly Corporate Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Mandy Van Gorp was confident that her employer of 18 years, Eli Lilly and Company, would treat her fairly when she objected to its company-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The pharmaceutical giant had promised to exempt employees with valid health or religious objections to the policy and she believed she had had both.

Despite presenting a doctor’s note in support of her exemption, citing an auto-immune disease, the company denied her request for a medical exemption. To add injury to the insult she felt, she tested positive for COVID-19 the day after receiving her rejection letter. She then appealed for a six-month deferral on grounds of the positive test. Lilly also denied that request. When she then raised her religious concerns, Lilly said she had missed the application deadline – a deadline that had lapsed several weeks before Lilly replied to her initial accommodation request.

The “toughest night was when we were sitting at the dinner table and my 12-year-old was sobbing, hysterically begging me to get the vaccine so I could keep my job,” recalled Van Gorp, a 42-year-old sales representative and mother of three. “I had to explain that my choice was not about money and that I felt God was leading me not to follow a mandate. It’s hard to explain that to a 12-year-old.”

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Joe Biden and the Uses of Nihilism

Chaos is the new, the intentional, normal. A pandemic of nihilism has been unleashed upon the land. As in Lord of the Flies, when laws, rules, protocols, traditions, and customs are mocked and dismantled, primitive human nature in the raw is unleashed. 

Madness now reigns in every quarter, from the iconic to the irrelevant to the fundamental. Statues of Lincoln, Douglass, and Jefferson are toppled or defaced. The rules of capitalization have been altered. We are told that 1619, not 1776, was our founding date—and this by a “civil rights” activist-journalist who had no idea of the date that the Civil War began.

Quite quickly after the revolutionary boilerplate, America began reverting to its natural Hobbesian or Thucydidean essence. If you dispute that, look at looted packages along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Try walking the nocturnal streets of Chicago or Baltimore. Visit the sidewalk homeless of San Francisco. Fly over our constipated ports. Drive into our empty new car dealerships. Pull up to our European-priced gas pumps. Shop in the emptying shelves of our Sovietizing food and discount stores. The common theme of the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, apparently, is that the entertainers must have written lyrics threatening the police, denigrating women, using the N-word . . . and be worth $100 million.

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Majority of Democrats Say the Unvaccinated Should Be Confined to Home: Poll

One-third of Americans say they haven’t gotten the COVID-19 shots, majority of Democrats say they should be confined at all times, and or fined.

A majority of Democrats say they’d support the unvaxxed being confined to their homes at all times, with 45% saying they should be confined to designated facilities and 55% support for fines.

Roughly one-third of Americans surveyed in a recent poll say they haven’t received the COVID-19 shots and the majority of them said they don’t plan on getting them. The unvaccinated would be targeted by a majority of Democrats in another poll who say they favor a government policy that would require them to “remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies.”

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CDC Report Finds Natural Immunity Worked Better Than Vaccine Against COVID’s Delta-Variant Wave

Anew CDC report states a prior case of COVID-19 protected people from infection better than vaccinations did during the delta wave last summer and fall.

The findings were published Wednesday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and is based on new research from the agency and health officials in California and New York that appears to contradict public health messaging that pushed for vaccinations.

Still, experts say the vaccination shots remain the safest way to protect against the worse side effects of contracting COVID, according to NBC News. During the height of the virus’s delta-variant surge last summer, essentially all hospitalized COVID patients were not vaccinated.

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University Fires 100 Professors Due to COVID

William Paterson University

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into its third year, William Paterson University is now laying off 100 full-time faculty over the next three years. 

The university, located in Wayne, New Jersey, originally planned to let 150 professors go before union negotiations revised the number to 100, or 29% of the institution’s 340 faculty, reports Inside Higher Ed.

Thirteen tenured professors lost their job at the end of 2021, according to the outlet. 

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The University of Minnesota Admits the COVID-19 Vaccine Doesn’t Stop Transmission, Will ‘Probably’ Mandate Boosters Anyway

The University of Minnesota admitted in an email to its student body that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission of the virus — yet the school says it will “probably” require more boosters for its students.

Public Health Officer Jakub Tolar sent an email to the student body answering some frequently asked questions about the virus earlier this month.

“I’m vaccinated, does that mean I can’t get COVID-19?” one question reads. “No,” the school responds, stressing that omicron remains “easily transmissible” even among the university’s fully-vaccinated population.

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Minnesota Launches $200 Vaccine Incentive Program

Families who get their child in the 5- to 11-year-old age group vaccinated for COVID-19 are eligible for a new round of $200 incentives, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday.

Families will receive one $200 VISA gift card per child who receives both doses between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, the news release said. Registration for the gift cards, which is possible following completion of the series, opens at 10 a.m. Jan. 24 and closes at 11:59 p.m. Feb. 28.

“In light of the Omicron variant, there is a new sense of urgency in our response, and we are doing whatever we can to encourage Minnesotans to get their vaccine and keep themselves and their communities safe,” Minnesota Department of Health Information Officer Doug Schultz told The Center Square in an emailed statement Thursday. “Getting as many eligible Minnesotans vaccinated as possible is critical to helping curb the spread of COVID-19 and keep Minnesota families safe.”

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General Electric Says It Won’t Require Vaccine after Supreme Court Strikes Down White House Mandate

General Electric Company

American corporation General Electric this week announced that it would no longer require its 56,000 employees to undergo either the COVID-19 vaccination or regular testing after the Supreme Court struck down the White House’s employer vaccine mandate.

The company suspended its enforcement of that policy on Friday, one day after the court said the Biden administration could not force large U.S. companies to require vaccinations for their employees.

President Joe Biden has urged companies to continue with their own personal mandates after his administration’s own efforts were stymied by the Supreme Court.

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Nurses Blast New CDC Emergency Guidance That Allows Healthcare Workers Infected with COVID to Return to Work

Healthcare worker in hair net and mask

Healthcare workers are up in arms over a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emergency guidance that allows healthcare workers who have had “higher risk exposures” to COVID, and even those infected with COVID to return to work after a five day quarantine as long as they’re asymptomatic.

Nurses groups are condemning the CDC’s guidance as  “potentially dangerous” for both workers and patients.

Earlier this month, the CDC issued the alert to health care workers across the United States as a “contingency” plan for anticipated staffing shortages due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

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United Employees Granted Vax Exemptions Put on Unpaid Leave, Can’t Work Elsewhere, Activists Claim

United Airlines plane on runway

United Airlines employees who have been granted exemptions to the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are allegedly being placed on indefinite unpaid leave, unable to seek employment elsewhere within the industry, access their 401(k) retirement savings, or file for unemployment.

United Airlines Capt. Sherry Walker, who has been placed on indefinite unpaid leave, told Just the News that United employees seeking reasonable accommodation regarding the company’s vaccine mandate for religious or medical reasons are being placed on indefinite unpaid leave and cannot leave their job for another airline because of the noncompete clause in their contracts.

Walker is cofounder of Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom (AE4HF), which represents 4,000 airline employees, about half of whom are with United.

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Biden’s Head Start Vaccination Requirement Could Have Detrimental Effects on Montana’s Rural Students

President Joe Biden’s administration put a policy in place that requires all employees in a federal education program to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which program directors argue will have a detrimental effect on Montana’s programs that assist underserved communities in the state.

If enforced, the requirement will have a negative impact on Montana’s Head Start program, according to program directors and information provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by the state’s Department of Justice (DOJ). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the White House, has mandated the vaccine for teachers and staff who work for Head Start and Early Head Start programs nationwide.

Head Start includes preschool programs for 3 and 4-year-old children, while Early Head Start programs are for infants, toddlers and pregnant women to “promote the school readiness of children ages birth to 5 from low-income families by supporting their development in a comprehensive way,” according to its website.

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Federal Workers with Natural Immunity to COVID-19 Sue Biden Administration over Vaccine Mandate

President Joe Biden talks to Veterans and VA staff members during a briefing on the vaccine process Monday, March 8, 2021, at the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Federal workers with naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 filed a class-action lawsuit Monday against the federal government over the Biden administration’s mandate that all federal workers be vaccinated against it as a condition of employment. The mandate doesn’t allow for exemptions for religious or other reasons, including having natural immunity.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil liberties group, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation on behalf of 11 individuals.

Those named in the lawsuit include Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief COVID Response Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and over 20 officials including cabinet heads, as well as several task forces and several federal agencies. They include the U.S. surgeon general, director of CDC and OPM, the secretaries of the departments of Veteran’s Affairs, FEMA, FPS, OMB, Secret Service, USGA, among others.

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‘Propaganda’: Experts Rip CDC Study Claiming Vax Offers Stronger Protection than Natural Immunity

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an “early release” study last week that uses a highly curated population to purportedly show that mRNA-vaccinated people have a much lower rate of reinfection by COVID-19 than naturally immune people, contradicting a much larger Israeli study this summer.

The CDC study concludes: “All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.”

The study analyzed “COVID-19–like illness hospitalizations among adults” across nine states from January through Sept. 2. Because public health authorities portrayed vaccination as the best way to avoid hospitalization, it’s less likely that vaccinated people would seek hospitalization, thus hiding their breakthrough infections relative to the naturally immune.

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Commentary: Financial Stability Is Key to Being Able to Leave Job for Refusing Vaccine Mandate

Joshua Mawhorter

Until recently, I was a California teacher working in two charter schools, one as a full-time classroom teacher of Government/Economics and sometimes U.S. History, and the other as a part-time independent study teacher who assists families with a program primarily based around homeschooling. I have taught for about five years and love teaching.

Last week, I was fired from one school and put on unpaid administrative leave at the other because of my refusal either to take and demonstrate proof of the COVID-19 vaccine or test weekly. I even filed a religious exemption stating the following that was rejected:

“As a committed follower of Christ, I religiously and philosophically cannot submit to either a government vaccine mandate or weekly testing.

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Texas Sen. Cruz Introduces Bill Prohibiting Vaccine Mandate for Minors

Ted Cruz

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation that would prohibit the federal government and any entity at the federal, state and local level that receives federal funding, including school districts, from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for minors.

“Parents should have the right to decide what is best for their children in consultation with their family doctor,” he said. “My view on the COVID-19 vaccine has remained clear: no mandates of any kind.

“President [Joe] Biden and his administration have repeatedly ignored medical privacy rights and personal liberty by pushing unlawful and burdensome vaccine mandates on American businesses, and now they are preparing to push a mandate on kids by pressuring parents – all without taking into account relative risk or the benefits of natural immunity.”

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Special Session Legislation Increases Safeguards Related to COVID-19, but Some Legislators Say Concessions for Big Business and the Federal Government Leave Tennesseans Unequally Protected

The legislation that emerged in Saturday’s early morning hours from the three days of the 112th Tennessee General Assembly’s Third Extraordinary Session provided a number of safeguards against COVID-19 mandates, but some legislators say concessions to accommodate big business and funding from the federal government also resulted in unequal protection for some Tennesseans against COVID mandates.

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by Maine Healthcare Workers Challenging Vaccine Mandate

Healthcare workers

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Maine healthcare workers attempting to block the state’s vaccine mandate.

The group of unvaccinated workers argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights because the law doesn’t have a religious exemption.

According to the Associated Press, Maine is one of three states including New York and Rhode Island that have vaccine mandates that lack religious exemptions for healthcare workers.

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Arizonans Fired over COVID Vaccination Might Not Get Unemployment

Arizona’s largest hospital system and others have set a Monday deadline for their employees to be vaccinated or face termination, but some employees who already have been fired for refusing a vaccine are learning they aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits. 

Banner Health, ValleyWise Health, HonorHealth and Dignity Health are set to require COVID-19 vaccinations Monday. Others have set deadlines that already have passed.

Mayo Clinic, a Minnesota-based hospital nonprofit with two facilities in the valley, announced in July it would require all employees to be vaccinated by Sept. 17. In a release, it said staff who declined to be vaccinated for COVID-19 “must complete education modules and will be required to wear masks and socially distance when on campus.”

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Colin Powell, First Black Secretary of State, Dead at 84 of COVID-19 Complications

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell died Monday morning due to complication from COVID-19, according to his family. He was 84.

Powell was the first black U.S. secretary of state, serving in the second Bush administration from 2001-2005. From 1989-1993, he served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

He was fully vaccinated, the family said.

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Nearly 47 Percent of Americans Think Natural Immunity to COVID-19 as Effective as Getting Vaccinated, Poll

Person in green protective gear in lab with safety glasses and mask on

Nearly half of Americans believe natural immunity to COVID-19 is as effective as the getting vaccinated, according to a new Convention of States Action/ Trafalgar Group poll.

Among the roughly 1,000 respondents in the national survey of likely 2020 voters, 46.5% said they believe people who have recovered from COVID with natural immunity from antibodies have the same level of protection as those that are fully vaccinated.

The survey was conducted from Oct. 7-10, as the public debate continues over government-mandated vaccines and the efficacy of the shots and masks.

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U.S. Navy Preparing to Discharge Unvaccinated Sailors

Sailers saluting one another

On Thursday, the United States Navy announced its intentions to discharge any and all sailors who have not yet taken the coronavirus vaccine, according to Fox News.

The Navy’s press release on the matter declares that November 14th is the final deadline for sailors to receive the vaccine, while the deadline for reservists is December 14th. In addition to being discharged, sailors who refuse to get the vaccine may also lose some of their veterans’ benefits.

“Those separated only for vaccine removal,” the statement reads, “will receive no lower than a general discharge under honorable conditions. This type of discharge could result in the loss of some veterans’ benefits.” In addition, the statement said that the Navy “may also seek recoupment of applicable bonuses, special and incentive pays, and the cost of training and education for service members refusing the vaccine.”

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COVID Vaccination Mandate Bill in Front of New Ohio Committee

An Ohio bill that would end COVID-19 vaccination mandates and nearly passed the House last week is back in front of another committee with health care groups from around the state lined up in opposition.

House Bill 435, the Vaccine Fairness Act, received hearings in front of the House Labor and Commerce Committee on Wednesday and Thursday.

The legislation would provide broad exemptions for COVID-19 vaccination mandates from public and private employers and schools. It also would stop any entity from mandating a COVID-19 vaccine that has not been fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and prohibit government-ordered vaccine passports.

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Vaccine Mandate Could Trigger ‘Mass Exodus’ of Minnesota Nursing Home Workers

Minnesota long-term care facilities like nursing homes and memory care centers say they’re in an impossible situation.

President Joe Biden unveiled a mandate last month that effectively requires U.S. employers to make their workers receive the coronavirus vaccine or face termination. This is likely to force a significant portion of workers in long-term care facilities out of their jobs. However, the industry can’t afford to lose more staff as it’s already overburdened and unable to provide care for patients amid a labor shortage.

“There is going to be a mass exodus” of workers, warned Natalie Zeleznikar, a nursing home administrator and executive.

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Border Patrol Agents Could Be Fired If They Don’t Get Vaccinated for COVID-19

Border Patrol agents could be fired if they’re not vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of November, two active agents and a union official told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.

Border officials have until Nov. 22 to get vaccinated or face three levels of discipline including “verbal counseling, one – 14 days without pay and removal from service,” a senior Border Patrol agent told the DCNF. The agent spoke on the condition of anonymity since they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter.

“So it’s official now. They are implementing disciplinary action for the unvaccinated,” the agent told the DCNF.

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Project Veritas Catches Johnson & Johnson Employees Arguing Against Children Getting Vaccinated

Two Johnson & Johnson employees have admitted on hidden camera that children should not be forced to get injected with a COVID vaccine because of the potential of long-term side effects.

In Part 3 of Project Veritas’ COVID vaccine investigative series, a J&J scientist also voiced support for making unvaccinated Americans feel like second class citizens to coerce them into getting the jab, while at the same time recommending against getting the J&J COVID vaccine. “Don’t get the Johnson & Johnson,” Justin Durrant told a Project Veritas undercover journalist. “I didn’t tell you though,” he added.

Brandon Schadt, J&J’s Regional Business Lead, told the undercover journalist, “J&J is like stepping in the best smelling pile of sh-t you could step in.”

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Commentary: Remember What Happened After the Soviets left Afghanistan, and Why

Red Forest near Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Exclusion Zone.

If you watched HBO’s recent docudrama about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, you may have been struck by the historic connection to the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. The epilogue posited the theory that the need for helicopters to mitigate the nuclear disaster caused the Russians to pull the attack helicopters from Afghanistan, making the already pointless war impossible to continue. So in 1988, the Soviets cut their losses and withdrew from Afghanistan. 

The Afghan rebels did not seize control of Afghanistan until 1992. But the 1988 withdrawal also played a huge role in the loss of legitimacy for the Soviet system itself. The apparent juggernaut wielded terrifying power at its borders but remained frail and vulnerable to collapse from within. The very idea that the great Soviet evil empire could fail set off a series of dominoes that led to its collapse. The Afghan war, the struggling economy, and the Chernobyl disaster all combined to reveal the wise and powerful leaders in Moscow as incompetent despots.

More than 30 years later, American planners may have felt they had years or at least months during which residual civilians could make an orderly departure from Afghanistan as needed. The Soviet puppet government lasted almost four years (ironically, longer than the Soviet Union continued to exist), so why wouldn’t an American-sponsored government be able to hold on at least that long? The American planners probably believed that they were prolonging the longevity of the puppet regime by leaving nearly $80 billion in military equipment in the hands of the American-aligned Afghan government.

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Newly Released Documents Show Fauci Was ‘Untruthful’ About Wuhan Coronavirus Research, Infectious Disease Expert Says

A trove of newly released documents detailing U.S.-funded coronavirus research in China prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shows that Dr. Anthony Fauci was “untruthful” when he claimed that his agency did not finance gain-of-research in Wuhan, an infectious disease expert said Sunday.

Documents published by The Intercept on Sunday show that Fauci’s organization, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provided federal funds to the U.S. nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology to construct laboratory-generated SARS and MERS-related coronaviruses that demonstrated enhanced pathogenicity in humanized mice cells, according to Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright.

“The documents make it clear that assertions by the [National Institutes of Health] Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful,” Ebright said in a tweet Sunday evening.

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COVID Vaccination Status Increasingly Determines Treatment Under American Legal System

Are you vaccinated against COVID-19? The answer to that question may determine how the American legal system treats you, whether an inmate, party or even lawyer.

From custody fights and bail conditions to courthouse access and grooming privileges, vaccination status is playing an outsized role in courts and jails nationwide.

An Illinois judge provoked outrage a month ago by revoking a divorced mother’s visitation rights to her 11-year-old son after Rebecca Firlit told him she couldn’t get vaccinated because of adverse reactions.

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Report: Top Health Officials Tell White House to Pause Vaccine Booster Plan

Top U.S. health officials told the White House pandemic coordinator on Thursday to scale back the Biden administration’s plan to administer the coronavirus booster shots to individuals in September, The New York Times reported.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey D. Zients that they need more time to collect and analyze the necessary data relating to the booster shots, The New York Times reported.

The doctors told Zients that their agencies might be able to determine whether to recommend boosters for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the coming weeks, according to the Times.

The two doctors presented their argument to Zients at a meeting on Thursday. It is unclear how Zients responded to the news.

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Citing Vaccine Requirement, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Shirkey to Skip Detroit Regional Chamber’s Conference

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) has indicated he plans to skip the Mackinac Policy Conference, which is hosted annually by the Detroit Regional Chamber, citing the conference’s COVID vaccine requirement. 

The Republican leader reportedly said he is already immune, having gotten COVID-19, and therefore chooses not to get vaccinated.

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Ohio COVID-19 Vaccination Rate Passes 50 Percent

Man getting COVID vaccine

Ohio crossed a COVID-19 vaccine milestone over the weekend as more than 50% of the state’s eligible population reached partial or fully-vaccinated status while masking and social distancing requirements continued to vary throughout the state.

Gov. Mike DeWine announced over the weekend the state passed 50% of eligible Ohioans at least starting the vaccine process, along with the increase in vaccinations in 85 of the state’s 88 counties. At the same time, Ohio’s reported cases Friday rose to 1,666 new daily cases and 24 deaths.

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United Airlines to Become First Major Airline Requiring Staff be Vaccinated

United Airlines plane on runway

United Airlines announced Friday that it will require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 starting this fall, making it the first major airline to do so.

“We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees,” United CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart announced in a memo. “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.”

The order requiring proof of vaccination will go into effect five weeks after the Federal Drug Administration officially gives full approval of the COVID-19 vaccines, or by Oct. 25, whichever comes first, The Hill newspaper reports. The FDA is expects to start giving full approval as early as next month.

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Commentary: You Are (Probably) Going to Be Infected With the Coronavirus

Crowded street market with people wearing masks

It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be next week. It may not be this month, when the rapid ascension of the Delta variant in the United States could send confirmed daily case counts spiking to 200,000 or more before settling down again. It may not even be next year. But someday, you will almost certainly be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

This uncomfortable fact may come as a surprise to many Americans, particularly to those who have spent hours sanitizing surfaces and groceries, who have dutifully adorned a mask even when not required to do so, and who have made the simple, science-backed decision to get vaccinated. SARS-CoV-2 has already spread around the world, infecting hundreds of millions or more. The genie is out of the bottle, and it is not going back in.

“We will be dealing with this virus forever,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview one year ago.

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Los Angeles Students Will be Forced to Undergo Weekly Testing Even If They’re Vaccinated

The Los Angeles Unified School District this week announced that students and employees returning to in-person instruction in the fall would be forced to undergo weekly testing even if they’ve been vaccinated against SARS-Cov-2.

“All students and employees, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, returning for in-person instruction must participate in baseline and ongoing weekly COVID testing,” Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly told media this week. “This is in accordance with the most recent guidance from the Los Angeles County.”

Though the district policy is making no distinction between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals, Reilly herself stressed the importance of getting vaccinated anyway.

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Health Officials Less Confident in COVID Vaccine Efficacy with Rise of Delta Variant

Woman in blue hair net and mask

Public health confidence in the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be waning as officials warn of enhanced danger — even for vaccinated individuals — from the “Delta variant” of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.

For most of the past year officials have claimed that vaccinations are the only viable path back to normalcy and away from lockdowns and other aggressive mitigation measures. “Look at the folks in your community who have gotten vaccinated and are getting back to living their lives — their full lives,” President Joe Biden said at a May press conference, arguing that the vaccine was “going to help them and their loved ones be safe, get our businesses open again, and get us back to normal.”

The rollout of the vaccines starting last year and continuing throughout the spring and summer of this year has been hailed as the driving force behind the reopening of the economy and the ending of masking mandates and similar restrictions.

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Critics Denounce New CDC Guidance Urging Mask Usage, Vaccine or Not

Guy wearing a mask

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed course Tuesday, reversing its previous COVID-19 guidance by urging Americans to wear masks, regardless of their vaccination status. Critics quickly denounced the reversal, saying it undermines vaccine confidence.

The CDC said all students and teachers should wear masks, even if they are vaccinated, and that all Americans, including those with the vaccine, should wear masks in public places where the virus has a significant presence. The agency cited the delta variant of COVID, which is more transmissible.

The CDC had previously announced in May that vaccinated individuals did not have to wear masks. The White House fended off questions from reporters at the White House press briefing on the reasoning behind that reversal.

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Obama Health and Human Services Secretary: Unvaxxed Should Not Be Able to Work, Access Children, Roam Freely

Kathleen Sebelius

Former Obama Administration’s Secretary for Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, announced on CNN’s “Out Front” that people who have chosen not get vaccinated should be limited in their movements, not be allowed to work and have limited or no access to children.
Sebelius said, “We’re in a situation where we have a wildly effective vaccine, multiple choices, lots available, free of charge, and we have folks who are just saying I won’t do it. I think that it’s time to say to those folks, it’s fine if you don’t choose to get vaccinated. You may not come to work. You may not have access to a situation where you’re going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy. Where you might kill them, or you might put them in a situation where they’re going to carry the virus to someone in a high-risk position.”

She continued, “That’s, I think the point where we are, is freedom is one thing, but freedom when you harm others like secondhand smoke and issues that we’ve dealt with very clearly in the past you can’t drive drunk. You can drink, but you can’t drive drunk because you can injure other people. You can’t smoke inside of a public place where you can give cancer to someone else in spite of their never having been a smoker.”

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Fully Vaccinated Do Not Need Booster for Delta Variant, CDC and FDA Say

Fully vaccinated Americans do not need to receive a booster shot to protect against the Delta variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration said in a press release.

“People who are fully vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as Delta,” a joint statement said on Thursday.

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Study: Michigan’s Vaccine Lottery Unlikely to Boost Lagging COVID-19 Injections

COVID Vaccine sticker

After Michigan missed President Joe Biden’s vaccine deadline of 70% injected with a first COVID-19 vaccine by July 4, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer bet big on a vaccine lottery, tossing in $5 million of taxpayer-funded prizes.

In the meantime, the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency estimates Michigan won’t reach the 70% benchmark for another year.

As of July 5, the state averaged 4,174 daily doses but only 1,740 first doses (0.1%) of the population.

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