Saturday, November 5, 2022

NAFTA JOE BIDEN BUILDS THE 'CHEAP' LABOR SERF CLASS OF ILLEGALS - Biden’s Border Chief Is Importing 24,000 Extra Poor Venezuelans

 

Wealthy Professionals Demand Quick End to Americans’ Title 42 Border Protections

Title 42
Mario Tama/Getty Images
5:26

Wealthy progressives are using healthcare credentials to campaign against the Title 42 border barrier that protects ordinary Americans from millions of economic migrants.


Biden’s Border Chief Is Importing 24,000 Extra Poor Venezuelans

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 13: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas answers a reporter's question during a news conference with Mexican counterparts at the State Department on October 13, 2022 in Washington, DC. The leaders of the neighboring countries are holding high-level security talks on the sidelines of the ongoing …
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images
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President Joe Biden’s border chief is rubber-stamping migration requests by 24,000 more poor Venezuelans, even as tens of millions of Americans suffer from declining wages, rising rents, and chaotic politics.

CBS News reported the quick approval of 6,800 migrants:

The U.S. government has given more than 6,800 Venezuelans permission to fly to the U.S. legally, and admitted several hundred of them, under a sponsorship initiative the Biden administration set up in October to manage a record number of Venezuelan migrants arriving along the southern border, officials said Thursday.

Since the program launched on Oct. 18, approximately 490 Venezuleans have arrived in the U.S. under the humanitarian parole authority.

The 24,000 migrants will be allowed to stay and work for two years. But they likely will either get a new legal loophole to stay or else will simply hide from the federal government’s deportation agents.

The Venezuelan door in the nation’s borders was opened on October 12, when border chief Alejandro Mayorkas was forced by White House campaign officials to block Venezuela’s economic migrants at the border. The pre-election move has greatly expedited the arrival of Venezuelan migrants at the border — but it has not been applied to other groups of migrants from Nicaragua, Haiti, or Cuba.

Since January 2021, Biden and Mayorkas have admitted at roughly 3 million economic migrants over the southern border, including at least 240,000 Venezuelan migrants. They have also admitted at least 1.5 million legal immigrants, visa workers, and tourists who work illegally.

CBS also reported that Mayorkas may decide to admit additional Venezuelan, despite Congress’ immigration laws which limit the inflow of legal immigrants to about 1 million per year: “Biden administration officials have said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could raise the program’s ceiling if he makes a determination the move is justified.”

The Cuban-born Mayorkas has repeatedly shown himself as a migration zealot. For example, he argues that Americans’ immigration laws must comply with his “equity” policies that put foreigners ahead of Americans.

His policies have seriously damaged the Democratic Party’s chances in the 2022 midterms. In August, a majority of Americans said Biden is allowing a southern border invasion, according to a poll commissioned by the left-of-center, taxpayer-supported National Public Radio (NPR).

If the GOP gains majorities in the House and Senate, Mayorkas will likely face blame for sinking other left-wing agendas favored by other members of the Democratic Party, such as civil rights, climate management, and economic development. But Mayorkas may survive the disaster because he is strongly backed by West Coast investors and their battalion of non-profit activist groups.

The federal government reopened the migration pipeline in 1965 — and doubled it in 1990 — after forty years of growing prosperity in a low-migration economy.

Since 1965, the government’s extraction of migrant workers from poor countries has pressured down Americans’ wages.

It is also boosted rents and housing prices, and it has reduced native-born Americans’ clout in local and national elections. The inflow has also pushed many native-born Americans out of careers in a wide variety of fields and spiked the number of “Deaths of Despair.”

An April 2020 article in the New York Times described some of the debilitating poverty faced by Americans in a high-migration economy. Lauren Bruce, a mother with one college-age child in Madison, Wisconsin, told the newspaper: 

My financial situation is vastly worse than that of my parents, who were 40 when I was born.

They always owned houses and had new cars, never worried about seeing a doctor, benefited from solid pensions and preached that college was the secret to their success. (Their tuition in 1960s Arkansas was about $250 a semester.) There were opportunities for them that they were able to take advantage of. There was a ladder. I’m not sure that ladder exists any more.

My opinion is that because of the infrastructural changes, the policy decisions that were made between 1963, when my parents were in college, and when it was time for me to start making big decisions around 2000, the deck was fully stacked against individuals and loaded for big corporate entities to consolidate money and power at the expense of us.

Migration advocates admit their migration agenda is a threat to Americans’ democratic society.

“What the United States and many other democracies are experiencing is unprecedented,” said advocate Yascha Mounk. “Most democracies have historically been relatively monoethnic and monocultural, with most of their citizens sharing common cultural origins;” the German-born immigrant told the New York Times in October 2022.

Mayorkas claims he has the legal authority to admit a vast number of foreign migrants under the “parole” side door at the border — and also to give them work permits —  above the annual limits set by Congress. He claimed the same power when he admitted more than 100,000 Afghans and Ukrainians.

However, “parole is supposed to be very limited authority given for exceptional circumstances for people that have emergent medical needs, or are needed to testify in criminal proceedings,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies.

The Biden administration “has expanded the use of parole beyond any recognizable point [and] is now regularly using it to simply release illegal migrants and various other people into the United States,” he told Breitbart News.

Mayorkas may be impeached by a GOP Congress in 2023.

But that impeachment is likely to be merely symbolic — unless GOP legislators also overcome business opposition to successfully reverse Mayorkas’s pro-Wall Street migration policies.

Labor Sec’y Walsh: No Matter How Many Jobs We Add, People Will Still Struggle if We Have Inflation

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On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh stated that “no matter how many jobs that I can get in front of this camera and tell you how we’ve added and how great they are, people are still feeling the struggle at the kitchen table” if we have inflation and “We still have to do more to bring those costs down.”

After touting the jobs report, Walsh stated that “we’re seeing a slow and steady economy now moving forward. And I think, hopefully, what I would predict — well, I’m not predicting anything, hopefully, what we see in the next few months is consistent job growth, but continuing strength, [a] strong economy. We have to continue to do everything we can to bring down inflationary prices. That — at the end of the day, no matter how many jobs that I can get in front of this camera and tell you how we’ve added and how great they are, people are still feeling the struggle at the kitchen table. So, that’s why the president has been — every time he speaks, he talks about that, bringing those costs down. We still have to do more to bring those costs down.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Exclusive — J.D. Vance: ESG Policies Are ‘Massive Racket to Enrich Wall Street’

MORAINE, OHIO - NOVEMBER 4: Republican candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance speaks with local press at a campaign stop at The Mandalay event center on November 4, 2022 in Moraine, Ohio. Vance will face Democratic nominee Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) in the midterm general election on November 8. (Photo by …
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Republican J.D. Vance, running for Ohio’s open United States Senate seat, told Breitbart News that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies are “basically a massive racket to enrich” Wall Street elites.

ESG policies are a form of leftist activism in financial investing that has become the latest vector to influence the way Wall Street financial firms and corporations continue to take social and political positions that do not relate to their business, such as stances related to climate change as well as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda.

“ESG is basically a massive racket to enrich Wall Street and enrich the financial sector of the country, at the expense of the industries that actually employ a lot of Ohio’s workers for middle-class jobs,” Vance told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview in Chillicothe, during a swing through southeast Ohio to channel his Appalachian roots.

Wall Street firms, like BlackRock, sell ESG as a way to invest on specific criteria that the political Left pushes on voters and consumers. In effect, ESG investing ensures such firms can drive up energy costs on Americans by boycotting fossil fuel companies.

In Texas, officials have banned state contracts with 10 Wall Street firms over their involvement in ESG investing which has been partially blamed for skyrocketing energy prices.

Likewise, last month, 19 Republican attorneys general opened an investigation into six Wall Street firms for their involvement with the United Nations (UN) Net-Zero Banking Alliance which sets emission reduction targets in their lending and investment portfolios to reach net zero by 2050.

Vance said Republicans must not sit by and allow Wall Street firms to set the rules for the nation’s working and middle class in a variety of private sector jobs. Legislation, Vance said, is needed to take on the issue.

“As important as it is to recognize how much damage has been done over the last 30 years, there’s still a lot of good industrial capacity in Ohio that we can build on top of,” Vance said. “ESG is basically a racket to destroy what we still have so that a few people on Wall Street can make some money.”

“I’ve seen this personally. I work in the tech world [and] I have seen companies misuse this system,” Vance continued. “I don’t blame an American company for following the laws of its own country; I blame the country for not passing laws to protect American workers.”

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) has been silent on the issue of ESG investing. In his bid against Vance, Ryan has continued to rake in campaign contributions from some of the nation’s largest multinational corporations, including Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, and Comcast, all of which are involved with ESG investing.

Vance has also looked beyond ESG investing when it comes to lawmakers’ seemingly ignoring corporate America’s selling out America’s working and middle class to line their own pockets.

In the same interview, Vance called the nation’s H-1B visa program a “scam” that has allowed decades of high-paying white-collar jobs to be taken by imported foreign visa workers as qualified Americans are laid off and forced to train their foreign replacements.

Vance said the new Congress must reverse federal immigration laws on the H-1B visa program.

“Generally speaking, a lot of the H-1B abuse we see is in the interests of the people hiring the [foreign visa] worker, who can undercut the wages of Americans, but is it in the interest of the 700 Ohioans who lost their jobs? Absolutely not,” Vance told Breitbart News.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

Wealthy Professionals Demand Quick End to Americans’ Title 42 Border Protections

Title 42
Mario Tama/Getty Images
5:26

Wealthy progressives are using healthcare credentials to campaign against the Title 42 border barrier that protects ordinary Americans from millions of economic migrants.

“The continuing and expanded use of the [Title 42] order, even when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself sought to end it in April of this year given its lack of public health need, is a travesty,” says a November 2 letter to President Joe Biden’s deputies.

The letter from 90 university-based white-collar advocates and healthcare professionals argues:

When public health authority is so cynically co-opted and perverted for political purposes, the bedrock of trust and legitimacy that is critical to effective public health practice is undermined and our collective health and wellbeing is put in jeopardy.

The Title 42 barrier was raised by President Donald Trump in March 2020, amid widespread fears of the China-origin coronavirus disease that has killed more than two million Americans. The decision was very popular, and Biden’s White House deputies have kept the barrier operating through the 2022 midterm elections.

However, Biden’s border chief Alejandro Mayorkas and his deputies, have cut many loopholes through the Title 42 legal barrier to help economic migrants get jobs and homes throughout the United States. Since 2021, Mayorkas has allowed at least 3 million economic migrants over his Title 42 border, minimized deportations, and restarted the inflow of legal immigrants and visa workers.

Mayorkas’ welcome policies have also killed thousands of migrants — at sea, along the U.S. border, and further south in the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia. Those dead migrants would not have risked their lives if they knew they would have been blocked by Title 42. Many migrants have also been sexually assaulted.

hat inflow of cheap-labor migrants is painful for many millions of blue-collar Americans who lose wage raises, decent workplace conditions, affordable rents, and high-tech, labor-saving investments.

Mayrokas’s massive inflow of migrants has also reduced the pressure on U.S employers to help pull millions of poor Americans out of addiction and back into the workforce:

But the healthcare professionals insist their upper-income progressive priorities — which are presented as healthcare claims — override the demand by Americans for enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws that officially curb the inflow of economic migrants. The letter claims:

By co-opting public health authority to advance immigration control objectives against the expertise of CDC scientists, and in opposition to public health guidance and best practice, the administration risks causing irreparable harm to the authority and impartiality of the CDC and of public health as a whole.

Yet the healthcare advocates repeatedly use their healthcare credentials to make a class-based political argument in favor of cheap-labor migration that takes much wealth from ordinary Americans:

… the Title 42 expulsion policy disparately affects Black asylum seekers from Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere who continue to experience targeted discrimination and violence in Mexico.

The United States was once a proud architect of the post-World War II refugee protection regime and for many years served as a beacon of hope for those fleeing persecution from around the world.  It is time for the Biden administration to close this sorry chapter in US history …

The healthcare professionals also washed their hands of the damage caused when the lured migrants collide with U.S. border law, which requires that asylum seekers be detained until their cases are heard. President Donald Trump bypassed pro-migration opposition and effectively detained many migrants in Mexico while their asylum claims were processed.

Migrants in Mexico are unprotected from the cartels that charge fees for access to Mayorkas’ border welcome. Yet the healthcare professionals try to blame border enforcement for the cartels’ extortion and crime:

Human Rights First has documented more than 10,000 reports of kidnapping, torture, and other violent attacks on asylum seekers and migrants blocked in or expelled to Mexico due to the Title 42 policy since President Biden took office.

The university professionals are also echoing anti-Title 42 demands by investor groups that stand to profit from the government’s policy of extracting migrant workers, consumers, and renters from poor countries.

The FWD.us network of coastal investors stands to gain from more cheap labor, government-aided consumers, and urban renters.

The network has funded many astroturf campaigns, urged Democrats to not talk about the economic impact of migration, and manipulated coverage by the TV networks and the print media.

The breadth of investors who founded and funded FWD.us was hidden from casual visitors to the group’s website sometime in the last few months. But copies exist at the other sites. The 2013 founders included Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins, Matt Cohler at Benchmark, and Breyer Capital CEO Jim Breyer.

MILLIONAIRE INSIDE TRADER NANCY PELOSI SAYS SHE CARES ABOUT 'WORKING FAMILIES' SO SHE'S HELPING NAFTA JOE FLOOD AMERICA WITH 'CHEAP' LABOR ILLEGALS TO KEEP WAGES FOR LEGALS DEPRESSED

 

Pelosi: ‘Republicans Want to Send Costs Soaring and Make Working Families Pay the Price’

CNSNEWS.COM STAFF| NOVEMBER 4, 2022 | 4:01PM EDT
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(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) put out a statement expressing her satisfaction with the October jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and arguing that Republicans are not happy with good economic news.

According to the data released by BLS today, the number of people in the labor force—meaning they either have a job or are actively seeking one dropped from 164,689,000 in September to 164,667,000 in November. The labor force participation rate similarly dropped from 62.3 percent to 62.2 percent.

The number of people actually employed dropped from 158,936,000 in September to 158,608,000 in October.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 3.5 percent in September to 3.7 percent in October.

“The October jobs numbers are the latest evidence that, under President Biden and the Democratic Congress, America continues to create jobs at a strong, steady, sustainable pace,” Pelosi said.

“While Republicans want to send costs soaring and make working families pay the price, Democrats will always put People Over Politics: lower costs, better-paying jobs and safer communities for all,” she said.

Here is the full text of Pelosi’s statement:

"San Francisco – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement on the October jobs report, which showed that the U.S. created 261,000 jobs last month:

“'The October jobs numbers are the latest evidence that, under President Biden and the Democratic Congress, America continues to create jobs at a strong, steady, sustainable pace.  Now, with more than 10 million new jobs — including a record 700,000 new manufacturing jobs — Americans continue to get back to work and our economy continues to grow.

“'This progress has been made possible by Democrats’ bold legislative action: weathering the pandemic with our Rescue Plan, rebuilding our nation with our Infrastructure Law, reinvigorating domestic manufacturing with our CHIPS and Science Law, and investing in our clean energy future with our Inflation Reduction Act.  Shamefully, Republicans overwhelmingly voted against these laws – even rooting for a recession.

“'Democrats have enacted landmark laws to lower the cost of living: lowering prescription drug costs and cutting health care premiums, while gas prices have come down.  House Democrats have gone further: passing the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act to take on corporate greed, the Lower Food & Fuel Costs Act to bring down prices at the pump and the supermarket, and historic investments in paid leave, Child Tax Credit, child care, home health care, universal pre-K and affordable housing.  Making them law will be a top priority for a Democratic Majority the next Congress.  In stark contrast, MAGA Republicans’ extreme agenda would make inflation much worse: plotting to repeal lower prescription drug costs, give tax breaks to the ultra-rich and slash Social Security and Medicare.

“'While Republicans want to send costs soaring and make working families pay the price, Democrats will always put People Over Politics: lower costs, better-paying jobs and safer communities for all.”

Suggested Reading by CNSNews
Oil Industry Pushes Back: Biden Is 'Shifting Blame for Price Increases'
Former President Barack Obama: ‘Inflation Is a Real Problem Right Now’
62.2%: Labor Force Participation Declines for 3rd Straight Month



Studies indicate that new Omicron subvariants could cause devastating COVID-19 surge in US


Granting ‘pandemic amnesty’ would be like opening Pandora’s Box

By now, we’ve all seen what Ivy League university professor Emily Oster wrote for The Atlantic: “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty”.

Understandably, my initial reaction was one of indignation. Those asking for “amnesty” cheered on a despostic government that ravaged small businesses, stood quietly by as law enforcement horses trampled peaceful protesters, and enabled psychological torture methods which no doubt contributed to the historic suicide rates among minors. They derisively laughed from their self-elevated place of ill-perceived moral superiority, all to find out they were categorically wrong — they were so arrogant in their delusions. An official pardon for the people who sowed such calamity, while still acting with such unrighteous scorn, is something I find inconceivable. They are the epitome of “useful idiots.”

What struck me most about Oster’s essay was the complete abscondment of responsibility. Just like the guards at the Nazi death camps, they were just doing what they thought was “right” — it was someone else’s fault.

An appeal for “forgiveness” completely perverts the word — first of all, forgiveness occurs after genuine repentance, something which Oster lacks given her refusal to accept culpability for her actions, and forgiveness does not mean crimes go unpunished. A convicted murderer in the courtroom may receive forgiveness from the victim’s family, but that does not mean he becomes exempt from a just punishment. Oster simply wants to dodge the consequences of her sinful actions at all costs, pretending she wasn’t utterly participatory in the newest ‘crime of the century.’

But then it really hit me: allowing “pandemic amnesty” opens the door for every crime against humanity to go unpunished and unrectified. It won’t be that long before they’re asking for “amnesty” from the fallout of a host of catastrophic decisions influenced by leftist fallacy and fanaticism: sexual butchery labeled as “gender-affirming healthcare”; pedophilic grooming of children under the guise of “LGBTQ visibility”; the live dismemberment of preborn babies because it’s “reproductive justice”; or possibly even “vaccine mandates” that have coincidentally preempted a sharp rise in cardiac deaths and episodes.

After all, just like Oster, the perpetrators will claim “We didn’t know.

Efforts to bring impenitent leftwing ideologues back into the fold of the American citizenry will only extend the other aforementioned areas of brutal human rights abuses. It will teach them that their beliefs and actions don’t have consequences, and they can commit the most egregious acts against their fellow man, without fear of accountability or reprisal.

If you replace the name “Anthony Fauci” with “Josef Mengele” — would we even be contemplating “amnesty” with these people?

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.


Now the Disgraced COVID 'Experts' Want 'Amnesty'?

In her recent article in The Atlantic, a Brown University professor, Emily Oster, is calling for "pandemic amnesty."  She is telling me to "forgive and forget" everyone who was yelling obscenities at me for not wearing a mask in a public park or calling me a mass murderer for posting a picture with a friend visiting.  I must forget all this, the author insists, because all those people had nothing but my well-being in mind!

The author admits that many (if not most!) measures imposed on us by "the experts" were harmful and destructive.  But "dwelling on those mistakes" is "counter-productive."  After all, people who made these mistakes had only good intentions.

"As we now know," the author concedes, cloth masks are practically useless.  People who got vaccinated spread COVID as easily as those who did not.  Keeping children locked up at homes had disastrous consequences on their development.  And some of the COVID "mitigation" measures — like beach closures in California — were outright dumb.  But let's not "dwell" on them — because those were "complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty."

"We didn't know!"  the author laments.

After three years of living through the pandemic, the author all but admits that "the experts" were just as clueless about how to approach it as your next-door neighbor.  "The experts" did not know even the most obvious things.

They didn't know that wearing a dirty piece of cloth over your face would not amount to anything other than a sinus infection.  Seemed like even a third-grader could've figured that one out — and many did.

They didn't know that walking on the beach was the safest activity one could do during a pandemic.  Sunshine and fresh air are the best disinfectants known to men, and a beach in early spring is the best place for "social distancing."  You don't need a crystal ball to understand that surfing in the ocean is not "a super-spreader event."

They didn't know that being away from school causes learning delays, especially for kids who don't have a parent in the home.  For many kids, a school is the only environment conducive to education.  To learn online, kids require constant supervision — I got a firsthand experience with that when my high school–age son was tutoring during COVID.  He had to call the parents multiple times a day to return their kids back to the computer screen.  What about the kids who didn't have a parent around, or access to a personal tutor?  It wasn't a difficult conjecture to know that these kids would fall desperately behind.

After almost everything "the experts" told us has been proven false, they demand "amnesty" because of the "uncertainty" they were facing.  Yet, back then, they denied that any uncertainty existed.  Back then, they claimed they knew exactly what to do — until they didn't.  Back then, they claimed that everyone who contradicted them, or doubted them, was "spreading misinformation."  They proclaimed themselves "THE SCIENCE," and they ordered everyone to follow their orders, or else.

You don't need to know the future — only the past — to know that science does not require "blind following."  Science involves debate, experimentation, and inquiry.  "The experts" and their admirers replaced real science with THE SCIENCE, also known as dogma.  And every time it clashed with reality, they turned around on a dime, and they absolved themselves of responsibility, citing "the evolution of THE SCIENCE" without providing any evidence as to how the science had "evolved."

Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic.  And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong.

Even in the face of uncertainty, the author admits, "some people got it right, for whatever reason."  Yet she is willfully uncurious as to what that reason is.  That reason was that some leaders made decisions based on common sense, not politics.  They consulted with scientists and health professionals of different persuasions, not just the ones who promoted the party line.  They answered questions correctly because they asked questions in the first place.  These were the reasons they got it right — but these reasons, the author argues, are unimportant.  All that matters is that we do not blame "the experts" for their failure.

Some people got it right because they wanted to get it right.  "The experts" did not — but still, they should get "amnesty" because they "meant well."  The author argues that some people made the right choices because they "had a hefty element of luck."  We are supposed to believe that for three years, Ron DeSantis magically guessed all the right cards, while Doctor Fauci just kept guessing wrong.  And that's why we all should cut the good doctor some slack.  Sure, he was heavily compensated for his "expertise" that involved repeating whatever talking points his puppet masters were giving him.  But he didn't mean any harm, so let's give him another million-dollar participation trophy.

But in spring and summer 2020, we had only glimmers of information. Reasonable people — people who cared about children and teachers — advocated on both sides of the reopening debate.

Now that "the alarming figures" are coming out, we must admit there were "reasonable people on both sides."  However, back in the day, only one side was viewed as "reasonable."  Anyone who dissented was known as "the science deniers" and "the grandma-killers."  People who claimed they "cared" did not advocate for debate.  They advocated for shutting down anyone who disagreed.

Because of "the experts," millions of kids suffered severe learning loss and developmental delays.  Cancer patients missed life-saving treatments.  Many did not attend the diagnostic tests that could have saved their lives.  Gravely ill people died alone without saying goodbye to their loved ones.  Because of "the experts," elderly people went into the crowds believing that a stupid mask would protect them.  So many lives needlessly lost.  And now, "the followers of the science" demand absolution because they meant "no harm."  Fair enough: Let's not be mean to the celebrities wasting their lives on Twitter.

In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn't a moral failing.

"The experts" admit they "didn't know then," so getting it wrong "wasn't a moral failing."  Not knowing is, indeed, not a moral failing — but refusing to learn is.  It is because of "the experts" that we didn't learn from this tragic event that impacted a generation.  And we still don't know.  We don't know why the first wave of COVID was so deadly, and why the one still around is not.  We don't even know how deadly each new variant is.  We don't really know how COVID spreads, and how to mitigate the spread.  We don't have a definite answer about the efficacy of masks.  We don't know if COVID vaccines protect you, and for how long.  We don't know why older people seem to be more in danger than the young.  We could have answers to all of these questions by now if we were allowed to ask them.  There is no excuse for why we don't know.

Because of "good intentions," we wasted millions of lives, and millions of livelihoods, and we chose to learn nothing from this horrible event.  And that is why, should the new pandemic come tomorrow, instead of relying of what we have learned, "the experts" will revert to the same game plan they used during COVID, needlessly wasting more lives.  If we let it slide, more people will die.

"The experts" failed us when we needed them most.  Then they demonized us for doubting their "expertise."  And now they admit they weren't "the experts" at all — only "well-wishers."  After ruining our lives, they cry for "amnesty."  If we learned one thing from a three-year pandemic, it's that we should not give it to them.  We should hold "the experts" accountable so that all the future experts take notice.

Tanya Berlaga is a freelance writer, translator, and publisher and is currently a contributor to Right Wire ReportThe Liberty Loft, and Free Speech Movement.

Image: Anthony Fauci.  NIAID via FlickrCC BY 2.0 (cropped).



Nolte: COVID Tyrants at Left-wing Atlantic Beg for Amnesty

Our COVID oppressors at the far-left Atlantic are now begging for a COVID amnesty in the wake of all their anti-science COVID oppression.
4:46

Our COVID oppressors at the far-left Atlantic are now begging for a COVID amnesty in the wake of all their anti-science COVID oppression.

That’s not going to happen.

Ever.

First, never forget the Atlantic is owned by this fascist who did this while you and I weren’t allowed to visit our relatives in hospitals or nursing homes or attend funerals.

Because I’ve needed both, I’m a big fan of forgiveness and second chances. Before that can happen, however, there must first be an admission of wrongdoing, an apology, accountability, and repentance.

We’re seeing nothing even close to that from our COVID oppressors. Instead, all we see is lying and gaslighting. The best example is Dr. Anthony Fauci — the COVID opressor’s tin idol — running around sayingWho me? I didn’t call for lockdowns. I didn’t call for school closures.

The thrust of the dishonest Atlantic piece is pure lies: “We didn’t know” what we didn’t know at the time.

In April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes. We all wore cloth masks that I had made myself. We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks.  Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”

These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.

Okay, but here is what you did know on day one…

You did know… The elderly were most at risk, and yet you still flooded nursing homes with infected COVID patients and then aided and abetted the cover up.

You did know… The risk of catching the China Flu was the same in a big box store or a small business. You still closed and bankrupted small businesses.

You did know… Everyday American had to watch their loved ones buried via Zoom, and then you attended the funeral for John Lewis.

You did know… The risk to children was minimal, and you still closed schools and practiced the cruelty of forcing crying and confused toddlers into masks.

You did know… People legally traveling to America were as capable of spreading infection as those illegally entering America. Yet, you still refused to stop illegal immigration.

You did know… That while we were shamed, ridiculed, fined, punished, and bankrupted for not following your fascist rules, that one left-wing COVID oppressor after another — including Fauci, Nancy Pelosi, Chris CuomoGavin NewsomGretchen WhitmerMuriel Bowser, the United Nations  — proved they knew those rules were unnecessary by personally violating them.

An activist holds a surgical mask during a protest of a visit by first lady Jill Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a vaccine clinic at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, June 6, 2021. Facing a winter surge in COVID-19 infections, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says that masks will be required in all indoor public places unless the businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

File/An activist holds a mask during a protest of a visit by first lady Jill Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a clinic at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, June 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

You did know… Every gathering came same with the same risk of infection. Yet, you cheered and joined Black Lives Matter and Antifa “gatherings,” while condemning any gathering of Trump supporters or the Faithful.

You did know… You declared liquor stores “necessary” while locking Churches and Synagogues.

You did know… It was as safe to buy vegetables as vegetable seeds. Yet you made seeds off limits.

You did know… It was unconstitutional for anyone outside of state legislatures to alter voting rules. Yet you did so anyway.

You did know… There was zero proof the vaccine stopped the spread of infection or prevented anyone from becoming infected. Yet you lied and said it did to justify firing, fining, ridiculing, harassing, dehumanizing, bullying, and discriminating.

You did know… Every human life is worthy. Yet you still laughed at those of us who died, wished us dead, and threatened violence against us.

No.

There will be no amnesty before there is accountability for the savages who forced our loved ones to die alone.

David Perruzza, owner of Pitchers bar, stands for a portrait behind signs requiring proof of patrons Covid-19 vaccination in Washington, DC, on January 23, 2022. - From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as fear and isolation spread, Perruzza had one thought -- he had seen it before. "For me, it was thinking about the AIDS epidemic all over again, how nobody took it seriously," said Perruzza, who owns two LGBT bars in Washington, DC. "We were like, 'Well, we're going to take this seriously.'" With the Omicron variant fueling fresh restrictions around the world, some older members of the LGBT community say their shared experience of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s put them ahead of the curve throughout the pandemic. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP) (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

David Perruzza, owner of Pitchers bar, stands for a portrait behind signs requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination in Washington, DC, on January 23, 2022. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty)

There will be no forgiveness before there’s a reckoning for the mercenary liars who abused our elderly and children.

There will be no moving on before there’s justice for those who were bankrupted, fined, jailed, mourned alone, forced into lonely despair, and stripped of youth’s magic and irreplaceable moments.

Most of all, there will be no reprieve because you are not sorry; because given the opportunity, you will do it all over again; because you are vicious, heartless, mercenary, politically-driven bullies only asking for amnesty so you can catch us off guard the next time. 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCFollow his Facebook Page here.

Studies indicate that new Omicron subvariants could cause devastating COVID-19 surge in US

Over the past month, the United States has seen a steady rise in the prevalence of the dangerous new immune-evading Omicron subvariants of SARS-CoV-2, threatening yet another surge of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks, and potentially millions more cases of Long COVID.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that the highly immune-evasive BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants increased in prevalence from 11 percent to more than 27 percent in just two weeks, or a doubling time of 10 days. By mid-November, these two subvariants will likely be dominant across the country.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. [AP Photo/Susan Walsh]

The anticipated COVID-19 surge will take place amid a flood of pediatric hospitalizations across the country for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and an unusually harsh beginning to the influenza season. The simultaneous surge of these three respiratory airborne pathogens will severely impact health care systems during the winter months, under conditions in which the industry is already on the verge of collapse three years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

While so far the crisis in children’s hospitals has been most acute, the elderly are particularly predisposed to complications with RSV and flu due to declines in their immunity. Among those 65 years and older, RSV leads to 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths annually.

The typical flu season causes upwards of 16,000 deaths among adults. However, a severe flu season can be far worse. In 2017-18, the US experienced 41 million flu-related illnesses, 19 million flu-related medical visits, 710,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 52,000 deaths. Data from the CDC for the first four weeks of October shows that outpatient medical visits for flu-like symptoms are two to three times higher than the five-year average baseline.

The exact magnitude of the next surge of COVID-19 is impossible to predict, but a number of recent studies indicate that it could potentially be the third catastrophic winter of the pandemic.

First, a preprint study by Dr. Yunlong Richard Cao and his team at Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center at Peking University, first released last month and updated regularly since then, found that the new Omicron subvariants render ineffective the monoclonal antibody drugs Evusheld and Bebtelovimab. The 9 million immunocompromised Americans eligible for these previously life-saving drugs will now have virtually no added protection against COVID-19.

Furthermore, the same study demonstrated that immunity induced from currently existing vaccines will barely stand a chance in protecting against infection with the latest variants. The researchers procured antibodies from individuals previously vaccinated three times with the Sinovac vaccine who were subsequently infected with the Omicron BA.1 subvariant last winter and tested their serum against the new Omicron subvariants. Roughly 7.5 months after the individuals were infected with BA.1, their antibodies were almost entirely unable to neutralize the BQ.1.1 and XBB subvariants. Even individuals infected with BA.5 this summer showed a similar lack of protection against the new subvariants.

Dr. Cao noted, “Results from mRNA vaccines should have overall higher neutralizing titers. But the immunity waning trend and immune evasion pattern should be highly similar.”

The implication of these results is that the billions of people infected with BA.1 globally last winter, and even many who were just infected with BA.5 this summer, remain at risk of reinfection with the new Omicron subvariants this winter, compounding their risks of hospitalization, death and Long COVID.

Another recent report from the CDC showed that the efficacy of vaccines in protecting against hospitalization continues to erode with each new variant. The study found that after three doses of the monovalent COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-19 over just a few months, associated hospitalization declined quickly over a few months this year.

During the surge of the Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants last winter and early spring, individuals who had been vaccinated within four months of being infected had a VE of 79 percent. During the surge of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants over the summer, this same figure dropped nearly 20 points to 60 percent. Both figures are much lower than those seen with previous non-Omicron variants.

Significantly, four months post-vaccination, VE fell to 41 percent and 29 percent for the BA.1/2 and BA.4/5 subvariants, respectively. For this group, which now comprises the majority of Americans who last had a booster shot well over four months ago, the CDC authors concluded that “among immunocompetent adults hospitalized … a monovalent booster dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine had limited overall effectiveness against hospitalization caused by currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants, likely because of waning immunity.”

They added, “These findings demonstrate the importance of staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations through receipt of booster doses, which currently consist of bivalent mRNA vaccines for all eligible adults.”

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 vaccines have been crucial in saving lives. But to continue to ask the population to get their boosters considering the steady decline in their efficacy is a tough pill to swallow.

Certainly, the working class must take these vaccines in order to prevent severe illness and death. But without a public health initiative to eliminate the virus and stop viral evolution, the “forever COVID” policy is becoming increasingly disastrous. The great danger remains that new variants could evolve that dramatically erode the vaccines’ ability to prevent hospitalization, or cause a higher infection fatality ratio (IFR), which would quickly overwhelm hospitals.

Even more disconcerting news has recently emerged about the benefits of the new bivalent COVID-19 booster shots that have been promoted as the latest and greatest. In two recent studies from Columbia and Harvard, researchers found the bivalent vaccines offered no better protection than the original booster based on the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2. Dr. David Ho, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia and an author of their study, told CNN, “We see essentially no difference.”

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha quickly sought to counter these findings and continue to promote the bivalent boosters, telling CBS News, “I do think that the protection against infection is going to be better than if you were getting the original prototype booster.” However, he acknowledged that he wasn’t “surprised” by the studies’ findings and offered no data to back-up his claim.

Drawing on studies conducted with the BA.1 subvariant, some scientists have speculated that the BA.5-based booster could potentially cause a “maturation” process in one’s immune system and provide slightly enhanced protection against future variants that descend from BA.5, but this remains to be proven.

The development of the new bivalent booster shots was predicated on warnings made by experts of a severe winter surge. However, without any clinical evidence to inform their decisions, the White House used the last remaining pandemic funds to buy millions of bivalent boosters from Pfizer and Moderna. Since the booster campaign was inaugurated at the beginning of September, less than 10 percent of the US population has availed itself of the vaccines.

One of the most glaring failures of the Biden administration’s response to the pandemic has been its lack of initiative to fund and promote the development of nasal and other vaccines that could potentially provide sterilizing immunity to entirely prevent infection. Since 2020, scientists have been warning about the shortcomings of the current vaccines and the need to explore more viable and enduring treatments to stop viral transmission.

In this regard, a recent study published in Science by Dr. Akiko Iwasaki and her team from the immunology department at Yale University bears mentioning. They showed that in animal models who received intranasal boosting after receiving systemic (a shot in the arm) vaccination, what they term “Prime and Spike,” subjects had a persistent and significant level of immunity against infection, severe disease and death.

The authors wrote, “We find that an intranasal unadjuvanted spike booster can be administered months out from primary immunization and that it offers comparable systemic neutralizing antibody booster responses to intramuscular mRNA boost. … [We] find that prime and spike leads to durable responses with protective vaccine efficacy 118 days from the initiation of vaccination.” However, funding to test these concepts in human trials is still lacking.

As the US enters another deadly winter of the pandemic, New York has once again become the bellwether for the rest of the country. The BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants now make up more than 40 percent of all variants in the state. Hospitalization rates are trending upwards rapidly, leading the New York State Department of Health to issue a warning on the “triple threat” posed by COVID-19, seasonal flu and RSV with hospital capacity in some regions reaching their limits.

The evolving storm of sickness and death is not a natural phenomenon. The experiences of the last three years of the pandemic have shown that capitalism and the ruling elites will sacrifice countless lives in order to prop up the financial markets. To stop the coming catastrophe, rank-and-file public health and health care workers must take matters into their own hands and link up with their class brothers and sisters internationally in a common struggle to end the pandemic.

Atlanta Medical Center closes, laying off hundreds and abandoning patients

As of Tuesday, November 1, Wellstar Health System officially closed the Atlanta Medical Center (AMC), in Atlanta, Georgia, leaving tens of thousands without necessary health care and laying off hundreds of employees. This will be the first time in over a century that patients will not be able to seek treatment at the location.

Atlanta Medical Center, April 24, 2011. [Photo by Daniel Mayer / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Wellstar’s decision to close AMC has left the city of Atlanta’s half million residents with only one Level 1 trauma center, at Grady Memorial Hospital. Level 1 trauma centers often deal with victims of vehicular accidents and other serious injuries and conditions. The decision to close the hospital is indicative of the crumbling infrastructure of the health care system in the US under conditions of growing public need.

The company made the decision to close the medical center in August, citing declining revenue and the costs of staff and necessary medical supplies. Wellstar is choosing to prioritize profit over public health at a time when hospitals are facing a spike in pediatric patients suffering from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as an expected surge of COVID-19 and influenza in the coming months.

The closure also reflects a nationwide labor shortage amid inflationary pressures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and the sapping of necessary funding for infrastructure as billions are poured into the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

Myriad industries are being affected as a result, including logistics, auto, mining, education and the railroads. However, the health care system is constantly under strain due to the criminal response of the government and corporations to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, a Democrat, issued a perfunctory executive order temporarily halting any development of the AMC location. Dickens first issued the moratorium on September 26 and renewed it at the beginning of October. Dickens’ gesture fails to address the loss of 300 workers’ jobs at AMC.

For his part, Republican Governor Brian Kemp announced that the Grady Health System will receive a one-time $130 million federal aid package with the intention of adding nearly 200 beds to make up for the 460 beds lost with AMC’s closure.

Wellstar employed 1,742 full- and part-time employees at AMC. Approximately 1,450 of these employees have accepted jobs at other facilities operated by Wellstar, according to an AMC spokesperson’s email. Nearby Emory and Grady hospitals also hired staff from AMC. 

AMC workers are not the only ones affected by the closure. Contracted employees of food service company Morrison Healthcare and housekeeping company Hospital Housekeeping Systems (HHS) are also facing layoffs.

The closure of the medical facility is being seized upon by Republicans and Democrats as political ammunition in the upcoming midterm elections. Democratic gubernatorial challenger Stacey Abrams has cited the stagnation of Medicaid expansion in Georgia as the primary reason for the closure, seeking to obscure the fact that the for-profit health care system is to blame. 

A number of mainly Southern states have chosen not to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. In Georgia, partial expansion took effect in 2021 but with a work requirement, no enhanced federal funding and covering far fewer people than full expansion. However, Wellstar officials have claimed that full Medicaid expansion would not prevent AMC’s closure.

The $130 million in federal funding allocated to Grady Hospital will be woefully insufficient to accommodate the large influx of patients as a result of the AMC closure. Emory Hillandale Hospital, a 100-bed facility in Stonecrest 16 miles east of Atlanta, will receive a miserly $12 million in federal funds to expand following the AMC closure. This expansion will include 15 new emergency bays, a renovation of its intensive care unit and improvements to emergency imaging services, among other upgrades.

According to Wellstar’s financial statements, AMC lost $40.8 million in fiscal year 2021 and $75.5 million in fiscal year 2020. During both periods, Wellstar’s flagship Kennestone Hospital, located 20 miles northwest of Atlanta in Marietta, where the company’s headquarters is based, had $190.7 million in operating income during fiscal year 2021 and $124.7 million during fiscal 2020. Total revenue generated was more than $1.58 billion in fiscal 2020, with $40 million less in earnings in fiscal 2019.

Wellstar also generated $2.7 billion in net assets, including $128 million in cash on hand in June 2021, according to its financial statements, with operating income at $377 million. Wellstar Health System CEO and President Candice Saunders earns an annual salary of nearly $2.5 million, $1.2 million higher than when she became CEO in 2015. Wellstar is one of the country’s nominally “non-profit” health care systems, claiming on its website: “As a not-for-profit health system, our passion for people extends beyond our system and into the communities we serve. Each year, we reinvest in you.”

In December 2015, Dallas, Texas-based Tenet Healthcare Corporation and Wellstar announced a deal to purchase AMC and its South Campus, North Fulton Hospital, Spalding Regional Hospital, Sylvan Grove Hospital and 26 physician clinics to the tune of $575 million.

Despite Wellstar reportedly investing more than $350 million into AMC since the purchase was completed in March 2016, it is shuttering the hospital. The AMC closure comes only a few months after Wellstar shut down hospital services at AMC South in East Point, seven miles south of Atlanta. Wellstar replaced the East Point hospital with an urgent care clinic, which is also slated to close, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.