Nearly 60 Percent of American Parents Are Concerned With What Their Kids Are Learning: Poll

Roughly 6-in-10 parents are concerned about the current quality of American education, according to a survey conducted by an education advocacy group.

An overwhelming number of parents believe they should be able to determine what their kids are taught in the classroom, according to a Free to Learn (FTL) poll. Concerns over COVID-19 mitigation measures, Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender ideology and virtual learning have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic.

CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

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Minnesota Gives Non-White Patients Preferential Access to Life-Saving COVID Treatment

Minnesota says healthcare providers should provide non-white patients with preferential access to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s written in a state document and apparently upheld by local hospitals.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) says in a document titled “Ethical Framework for Allocation of Monoclonal Antibodies during the COVID-19 Pandemic” that “race and ethnicity alone, apart from other underlying health conditions, may be considered in determining eligibility for mAbs [monoclonal antibodies].”

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Official Washington Looks Ahead to a New Year with More COVID, Inflation, and Supply Chain Risks

President Joe Biden walks along the Colonnade with the Combatant Commander nominees U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson on Monday, March 8, 2021, along the Colonnade of the White House.

Inflation, “softness” in the White House, and pandemic uncertainty make up some of the biggest risks to the U.S. economy in 2022, according to a Washington consulting firm.

“Every quarter, I take a macro look at trends driving politics and policy looking both backward and forwards and identify where key political risks may lurk and where political opportunities may present themselves,” Bruce Mehlman, former assistant secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The most recent analysis targets 2022 and identifies the emerging risks business and government leaders should anticipate and prepare for.”

A founding partner of the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Mehlman advises prominent companies to understand and prepare for emerging trends and risks critical to the ever-evolving policy environment.

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Healthcare Activists Push for Policies to Hardwire Marxism in Medicine

Healthcare worker in hair net and mask on

The Biden administration proposed giving bonus payments to physicians who acknowledge systemic racism as the primary cause of health differences between racial groups and incorporate so-called “anti-racism” into their medical practices.

The move to pressure healthcare professionals to repeat the claim that racial health disparities are caused by racism and not lifestyle choices is part of a broader, years-long push to hardwire “race Marxism” into the medical field. The effort stretches from medical schools and research institutions to patient care and medical administration, with potentially devastating effects for patients and the healthcare system as a whole.

“Race Marxism,” analogous to “anti-racism” as popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, seeks to promote equal outcomes across racial groups, as opposed to a “colorblind” approach which favors equal opportunity and does not take race into account.

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New York Times Editor Dies of Heart Attack Day After Moderna Booster Shot

Just a day after taking the Moderna booster shot, a New York Times editor unexpectedly died of a heart attack. 

“This is Carlos’s wife, Nora. It’s with deepest sorrow that I have to share with you that Carlos passed away last night of a heart attack. I’ve lost my best friend and our kids lost a truly great dad. I will be off social media for awhile,” Carlos Tejada’s wife announced on his Twitter account on Dec. 18.

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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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U.S. Life Expectancy Drops to Lowest Level Since Second World War

The U.S. life expectancy dropped to its lowest level since World War II in 2020, multiple sources reported.

Life expectancy fell from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77 years in 2020, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, NBC News reported.

The average life expectancy for males fell 2.1 years from 76.3 in 2019 to 74.2 in 2020, NBC News reported. Women’s average life expectancy decreased 1.5 years from 81.4 in 2019 to 79.9 in 2020.

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Commentary: U.S. Population Growth Just Hit an All-Time Low

Crowd of people walking in New York City near the subway

Population growth in the United States declined to an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a decade-long fertility slump, 2020 saw more people dying than being born in half of all US states. Early estimates suggest that the US population grew only 0.35 percent, the lowest rate ever recorded, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ writers Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros report, “With the birthrate already drifting down, the nudge from the pandemic could result in what amounts to a scar on population growth, researchers say, which could be deeper than those left by historic periods of economic turmoil, such as the Great Depression and the stagnation and inflation of the 1970s, because it is underpinned by a shift toward lower fertility.”

The Malthusian View of Population

This demographic news comes at a time when limiting family size is widely encouraged in the media. In July, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won an award for their “enlightened decision” to limit themselves to two children. And in response to a recent Census Bureau report of low population growth over the last decade, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times column that, “In fact, in a world of limited resources and major environmental problems there’s something to be said for a reduction in population pressure.”

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Commentary: U.S. Population Growth Just Hit an All-Time Low

Crowd of people walking in New York City near the subway

Population growth in the United States declined to an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a decade-long fertility slump, 2020 saw more people dying than being born in half of all US states. Early estimates suggest that the US population grew only 0.35 percent, the lowest rate ever recorded, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ writers Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros report, “With the birthrate already drifting down, the nudge from the pandemic could result in what amounts to a scar on population growth, researchers say, which could be deeper than those left by historic periods of economic turmoil, such as the Great Depression and the stagnation and inflation of the 1970s, because it is underpinned by a shift toward lower fertility.”

The Malthusian View of Population

This demographic news comes at a time when limiting family size is widely encouraged in the media. In July, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won an award for their “enlightened decision” to limit themselves to two children. And in response to a recent Census Bureau report of low population growth over the last decade, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times column that, “In fact, in a world of limited resources and major environmental problems there’s something to be said for a reduction in population pressure.”

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Jobless Claims Remain Near Record Lows

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims totaled 205,000 in the week ending Dec. 18, a new post-pandemic low.

The Labor Department figure shows an unchanged amount of claims from the previous week ending Dec. 11. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimated that claims would remain around last week’s reported level of 206,000, just above the lowest number in 52 years.

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Minnesota Gov. Walz Tests Positive for COVID-19

Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday via Twitter that he and other members of his family have tested positive for COVID-19.

Gus, who is vaccinated, had “some sniffles” over the weekend, tested negative for COVID-19 with a rapid test and then tested positive, the governor said in a video message on Twitter.

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Biden Says Fully Vaccinated Can Feel Free to Celebrate the Holidays, but Unvaccinated Face Hospitalization and Death

During a speech Tuesday afternoon, Joe Biden said fully vaccinated Americans should feel comfortable celebrating the holidays with their families, while warning unvaccinated Americans that they are at a higher risk of ending up in the hospital and dying. Biden repeatedly urged vaccine holdouts to get the jab, saying it is the patriotic duty of every American, and stressing that the shots are “free.”

Biden announced that starting next month, insurance will start covering at-home COVID tests, and the government will provide free tests to those who don’t have insurance. He also said the government would set up emergency testing sites in COVID hot spots around the country.

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FDA Won’t Say Why Some Non-Approved Pfizer Vaccines Were Deemed ‘BLA-Compliant’

Through Ohio attorneys representing Miami University in a lawsuit against the school over its mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy, The Ohio Star confirmed that at least none batches of Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) vaccine were deemed Biologics License Application (BLA) compliant. 

BLA compliance is typically reserved for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs. That is the licensing procedure for drugs seeking to become FDA approved. 

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Georgia, 23 Other States File Lawsuit Against Head Start Vaccination, Mask Mandate

Georgia is again pushing back against the Biden administration’s COVID-19 mandates.

Georgia and 23 other states are asking the court to block the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration for Children and Families from requiring Head Start program staff, certain contractors and volunteers to wear masks and be fully vaccinated by Jan. 31.

Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr announced the court challenge against the Head Start vaccination and mask mandate Tuesday.

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Pfizer’s Comirnaty Available Abroad, Not in U.S.

New York-based Pfizer has sold and shipped hundreds of millions of doses of its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty to the European Union (EU) despite saying last week that it is not being shipped in the United States. 

“Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced they will supply an additional 100 million doses of COMIRNATY®, the companies’ COVID-19 vaccine, to the 27 European Union (EU) member states in 2021,” Pfizer said in an April press release. “This announcement is a result of the European Commission’s (EC) decision to exercise its option to purchase an additional 100 million doses under its expanded Advanced Purchase Agreement signed on February 17, 2021. This brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the EU to 600 million.”

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FDA Authorized First COVID-19 Antiviral Pill in U.S.

The FDA on Wednesday authorized the first COVID-19 antiviral pill in the U.S.

The Pfizer pill, Paxlovid, will be prescribed for use in adults and children 12 and older who have mild to moderate virus symptom and at risk for severe disease or hospitalization, according to a Food and Drug Administration statement obtained by NBC News.

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Democrats Urge Health Officials to Require Vaccination or Negative Test for Domestic Flights

A group of Democratic lawmakers sent letters to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday asking officials to require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to fly domestically.

The letters, sent to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, were signed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, along with Reps. Eric Swalwell of California, Donald Beyer of Virginia and Ritchie Torres of New York. The lawmakers cited the recent emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as justification for the request.

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In Email to Fauci, National Institutes of Health Director Collins Asked for Media Hit Piece to Smear ‘Fringe’ Harvard, Stanford, Oxford Epidemiologists

Last fall, outgoing National Institutes of Health Director (NIH) Francis Collins asked Dr. Anthony Fauci in an email to pursue a “quick and devastating” media hit piece to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration, recently released emails show.

More than 60,000 infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists signed the declaration to express their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”

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Commentary: Dismissals of Safe Outpatient Drugs Cause Needless COVID Deaths According to Doctors

For the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no officially approved outpatient treatments for combating the disease. From March 2020, when the virus first emerged in the United States, until that November, when the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of monoclonal antibodies, health authorities advised that the infected do little but quarantine themselves, drink plenty of fluids and rest unless hospitalization was necessary.

During those chaotic final months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the medical establishment expressed extreme caution regarding outpatient treatments for the virus, and these warnings were amplified by major media hostile to the president, for example when he touted the anti-malaria medicine hydroxychloroquine.

Although an estimated 12% to 38% of prescriptions are written for FDA-approved drugs used “off-label” (including Botox and Viagra), Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declared early on that providers should dispense only medicines proven to be safe and effective for COVID patients through “randomized, placebo-controlled trials.” These can take months or years to conduct, and often at great cost.

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COVID Researcher Was Called ‘Race Traitor’ for Investigating Lab Leak Theory

Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and Harvard University, said she was accused of racism for investigating the possibility of COVID-19 leaking from a Wuhan, China, lab.

Chan began asking questions about the origins of the virus and challenging the wet market theory in March 2020, voicing her concerns on Twitter to an often hostile scientific community. Chan, who is ethnically Chinese, said she was called a “race traitor” for suggesting the virus could have been caused by a lab accident in Wuhan.

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Commentary: The Worst Excuses for the Lockdowns Were the Initial Ones

The following is an excerpt from “When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason” (Simon & Schuster, 2021).   

Let’s travel back in time to March of 2020. It was then that predictions of mass death related to the new coronavirus started to gain currency. One study, conducted by Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, indicated that U.S. deaths alone would exceed 2 million.   

The above number is often used, even by conservatives and libertarians, as justification for the initial lockdowns. “We knew so little” is the excuse, and with so many deaths expected, can anyone blame local, state and national politicians for panicking? The answer is a resounding yes.

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Challenges to Biden’s COVID Vaccination Mandate Head to Supreme Court

President Joe Biden and Personal Aide Stephen Goepfert walk through the Colonnade, Friday, August 6, 2021, on the way to the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

President Joe Biden’s mandate that all businesses with 100 employees or more require employee COVID-19 vaccinations is now with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus, Ohio-based policy group, became the first to file a motion for an emergency stay with the court, less than an hour after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted the government’s request Friday to dissolve an existing administrative stay previously issued by the Fifth Circuit.

The Liberty Justice Center filed a similar motion Saturday with the high court on behalf of a Louisiana grocery store owner and six Texas employees of CaptiveAire Systems.

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Judge Removed After Allegedly Calling Colleague Names, Making Employee Take Diet Pills, Using Fake Facebook Accounts to Threaten Litigants

Jefferson County, Alabama, Judge Nakita Blocton was removed from her job after numerous accusations of abuse against employees, colleagues and litigants while reportedly under the influence of Phentermine or other prescription drugs.

Blocton was accused of calling another judge a “fat bitch” and “Uncle Tom,” according to the judgment of the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

One employee accused Blocton of forcing her and others to take Phentermine, a diet pill, to “pep” them up after working late in a complaint to the Alabama Judiciary.

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Commentary: Poll Reveals Education Quality, Curriculum Stoke Parents’ Concern

After a year in which parents across the country began exercising more political power at school board meetings and through activist groups, the COVID-fueled parent movement is unlikely to subside any time soon, a new poll released Monday found.

Even as some school districts in Oregon and other locales this year suspended math and reading proficiency graduation requirements, most Americans believe public school academic standards aren’t high enough.

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Teachers Get Raises, Bonuses From Federal COVID Relief Funds Meant to Reopen Schools Safely

This week’s Golden Horseshoe once again goes to the U.S. Department of Education for allowing school districts to use pandemic relief funds for pay raises and bonuses for teachers despite the funds being appropriated to reopen schools safely.

Schools nationwide received $190 billion through three relief packages passed. Of that total, the largest sum, $122 billion, was from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

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Medical Officials, Experts Criticize Biden Admin for ‘Reckless’ Handling of Pandemic

The federal agencies in charge of COVID-19 response are taking hits from former officials and high-profile medical professors for “sidelining experts,” not conducting basic research, and mischaracterizing evidence related to vaccines and masks for young people.

The Biden administration is getting a pass for “extreme political pressure” that “appropriately” prompted outrage against its predecessor, two FDA alumni wrote in The Washington Post Thursday.

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Texas School Board Doubles Down On Efforts to Censure Two Mothers Who Objected to District Policies

Two conservative Texas school board members are embroiled in a legal battle against their fellow trustees fighting their attempts to investigate and censure them, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Mary Bone and Danielle Weston are up against the other five members of Round Rock Independent School District’s (RRISD) Board of Trustees, who are attempting to investigate and censure them for opposing their COVID policies and use of its police force to keep the public out of a Sept 14. board meeting, the two women told the DCNF. If the censure resolution passed, it would strip them of their powers and duties, restrict their access to school property and hinder their ability to do their job.

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Buzzfeed’s Holiday Party Becomes Super-Spreader Event Despite Company’s Vaccine Mandate

Buzzfeed’s holiday party appears to have become a super-spreader event, despite a company-wide vaccine mandate that required partygoers to present their vaccination cards in order to get into the event.

Three BuzzFeed staffers were reportedly infected with COVID-19 following the company’s Christmas party in Manhattan last week, and about six others are awaiting test results after becoming ill.

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Boeing Suspends Vaccine Mandate for Employees

Boeing Friday said it has suspended its requirement that U.S.-based employees be fully vaccinated or face losing their jobs.

The announcement comes as several attempts by President Joe Biden to require vaccinations for workers in various settings have been blocked by courts in recent weeks.

“Boeing is committed to maintaining a safe working environment for our customers, and advancing the health and safety of our global workforce,” a company spokesperson told KOMO News. “As such, we continue to encourage our employees to get vaccinated and get a booster if they have not done so. Meanwhile, after careful review, Boeing has suspended its vaccine requirement in line with a federal court’s decision prohibiting the enforcement of the federal contractor executive order and a number of state laws.”

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Commentary: As Biden Courts Unions, Poll Shows Voter Split on Labor

Staff were still finding their desks at the White House when the new first lady hosted a summit to celebrate educators. There were just two guests invited on that first full day of the new administration: the leaders of the two largest public teacher unions in the country. And not that there was ever any confusion, but Jill Biden assured them both that organized labor “will always have a seat at the table.”

That has been true throughout the 46th president’s first year. For the Bidens, unions aren’t a casual part of some coalition. Labor is family. The first lady is a card-carrying member of the National Education Association. It is personal when Joe Biden promises to govern as “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”

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Commentary: The Collapse of Yellow School Bus Transport

Between 2012 and 2019, student ridership on school district buses declined nationally by 3.8 million riders. The drop is owed to various factors, especially increased demand for drivers in private industry. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the trend, via a combination of even more demand for drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses and reluctance of older drivers to return to work after the shutdown. A nationwide bus driver shortage has been in the headlines this fall, with stories focusing on stranded students and; most dramatically, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker called out the national guard to drive buses.

The decline of the yellow bus system presents an equity challenge for students. In a choice-based education system, lack of bus transport in certain areas means that children in those areas will have fewer schooling options. The problem will require an urgent effort to modernize. Nationwide, only about a third of students took buses to school in 2017, but in some states the figure is considerably lower – such as Arizona, where it had 23% by 2019.

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6th Circuit Ruling Restoring Employer Vaccine Mandate Falsely Claims ‘Options Available to Combat COVID-19 Changed Significantly’ When ‘FDA Granted Approval to One Vaccine on August 23, 2021’

The majority opinion released on Friday by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which restored the Biden administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring employers with more than 100 employees to mandate that all employees take a COVID-19 vaccinefalsely asserts that Pfizer’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approved vaccine is currently available and in use among the general public.”

“At the same time, the options available to combat COVID-19 changed significantly: the FDA granted approval to one vaccine on August 23, 2021, and testing became more readily available,” the majority opinion asserts on page 24 of the ruling.

The majority opinion was written by Obama-appointed Judge Jane Branstretter Stranch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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Kentucky Congressman Massie: Comirnaty Not Available in United States

A Kentucky congressman Saturday said that Pfizer’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COVID-19 vaccine is not available in the United States after The Ohio Star spent a week reporting on that subject. 

“Your first sentence, ‘Comirnaty is available in the US,’ is false. Show us one location it’s available to prove otherwise. The FDA requires Pfizer to disclose to other countries BioNTech is ‘subject to an EUA and is not approved or licensed by the FDA,'” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY-04) said on Twitter. 

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War Room Pandemic: Steve Bannon Talks to The Star News Network CEO and Editor in Chief, Michael Patrick Leahy About OhioHealth’s Distribution of Not Fully Approved COVID-19 Vaccine

  Stephen K. Bannon welcomed The Star News Network’s CEO and Editor in Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Thursday’s War Room: Pandemic to discuss The Ohio Star’s breaking story by Peter D’Abrasco regarding the unapproved COVID-19 vaccines being distributed by OhioHealth. Bannon: Michael Patrick Leahy from The Ohio Star, you’ve…

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Biden Suggests Unvaccinated Americans Are Irresponsible, Unpatriotic Spreaders of Disease

During an interview on Tuesday, Joe Biden chastised unvaccinated Americans, accusing them of being irresponsible spreaders of disease, and suggesting they are unpatriotic if they don’t at least get tested before they go out in public.

Biden began his harangue by scoffing at the idea that people should feel free to refuse the experimental injections, even though they have led to an alarmingly high number of adverse events, including around 400,000 deaths according to some estimates.

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JPMorgan Chase Bank Forces Unvaccinated Employees to Work Remotely

America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., told unvaccinated employees at the Manhattan offices that they must remain at home and work remotely, multiple sources reported.

Tuesday’s new rule allows only vaccinated employees and visitors to enter the bank’s Manhattan offices, a JPMorgan spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Maks will be required when walking through lobbies, using elevators and in the company restaurants when not eating.

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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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Biden Says ‘Willing to Lose’ Presidency over Decisions Including Pandemic, Afghanistan, Middle Class

President Biden this past weekend suggested he would be willing to lose his presidency over his decisions on several key issues including his widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a CBS “Sunday Morning” interview in which he was asked whether he was discouraged by the criticism over his handling of the pandemic and other first-year challenges, Biden answered “No.”

“But look,” he continued. “One of the things we did decide, and I mean this, my word as a Biden, I know what I’m willing to lose over. If we walk away from the middle class, if we walk away from trying to unify people, if we start to engage in the same kind of politics that the last four years has done? I’m willing to lose over that.”

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Commentary: U.S. Drug Agents Ramp Up Fentanyl Counterattack on Chinese Mainland — as DEA Faces Its Own Troubles at Home

U.S. drug agents are expanding operations in China – six years after America’s largest trading partner and global rival emerged as the main source of chemicals used to make highly lethal fentanyl. It’s now claiming 65,000 American lives a year.

The small crew of about a dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents, including those in new outposts in Shanghai and Guangzhou, is nearly double the number in 2018. They face what seems like mission impossible: collaborating with Chinese agents to try to bust traffickers hidden somewhere in a sprawling export supply chain that’s linked to 160,000 companies.

“It’s such a massive chemical industry, and then there are layer upon layer of traders, brokers and freight forwarders,” says Russ Holske, the DEA’s director for the Far East, who set up the new offices in China before he retired. “It’s a daunting challenge.”

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Supermarket Giant Strips Unvaccinated Employees of Their Benefits

Supermarket chain Kroger announced Tuesday it will eliminate paid emergency leave for unvaccinated employees who contract COVID-19 in addition to requiring some of them to pay a monthly $50 health insurance surcharge starting in 2022, according to a company memo.

The country’s largest supermarket chain, which employees roughly 465,000 workers, issued an internal company memo announcing the changes, which will start on Jan. 1, a company spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Kroger is tightening their COVID-19 related policies as U.S. businesses face uncertainty over President Joe Biden’s recent federal vaccination mandate.

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Facing Labor Shortages, Several Large Hospital Systems Drop Vaccine Mandates

Several large U.S. hospital systems have dropped their COVID-19 vaccine requirements for employees in the wake of a U.S. district court’s temporary halt of the Biden regime’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

After months of protests, the mandate forced thousands of hospital employees to either resign, or be terminated because of their refusal to get vaccinated.

Louisiana-based federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction on November 30, blocking the federal government from mandating the experimental injections for workers at Medicare or Medicaid-funded healthcare facilities in 40 states.

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Commentary: One Chart Explains Biden’s Inflation Disaster

We’ve told you before about Stephen Moore’s Committee to Unleash Prosperity and his must-read Hotline but the Friday, December 10 edition was a Pulitzer Prize winner, or would be if conservatives ever got Pulitzer Prizes. You can read the entire newsletter through this link and we highly recommend you do so, because in one edition it pretty well destroys the entire Biden Democrat agenda.

The lead article shows the effects of Biden’s inflation disaster in one chart. And Steve Moore explains “inflation isn’t going away. No, it isn’t transitory. And, sorry, no, CNN, it isn’t good for you!”

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Commentary: Union-Mandated School Shutdowns Are Having Major Consequences

Recently, a report compiled by Mike Antonucci for the Defense of Freedom Institute confirmed that the teachers unions had a heavy-handed role in the COVID-related shutdowns that consumed much of the country starting in March 2020. And the “never let a good crisis go to waste” unions were in prime form in the process. The California Teachers Association, for example, issued a “bargaining advisory” in May of 2020, in which it states, “When exercising a ‘get for the give’ approach to bargaining concessions, locals should consider strengthening or implementing consultation procedures language in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement).” The union added, “Now is the time to secure (contract) language improvements that we have wanted for some time.”

While the California Teachers Association was busy instructing its local teachers unions how to milk the shutdown, Antonucci notes that it was successful on a statewide basis by “winning a ban on teacher layoffs, a substantial reduction in required instructional minutes, and the elimination of public accountability data collections for 2020, including those for academics, absenteeism, graduation and suspension rates, and college readiness.”

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New Study Suggests Natural Immunity Is More Protective over Time Than COVID-19 Vaccine

According to a new study out of Israel, the immunity individuals experience after recovering from COVID-19 is better than the protection experienced by individuals following an immunization against the virus.

Scientists who looked at the country’s health database over a number of months found that COVID infections and severe illness were higher among individuals who were vaccinated than those who recovered from the illness – those with natural immunity.

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Poll: Approval for Biden’s Handling of Economy, Coronavirus Sinks Further

Approval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and coronavirus sank even further in recent days, according to a new CNBC All-America Economic survey.

Roughly 46% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic while 48% disapproved, marking the first time his pandemic approval rating is underwater, according to CNBC.  Biden’s economic approval also plummeted, with 37% approving and 56% disapproving.

“The Covid (approval) number is actually I think the more important one,” said Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey. “As goes COVID, so goes the Biden presidency, and that’s really proving to be quite true.”

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Charges Dropped Against Minnesota State Capitol Attacker as Woman Who Kept Restaurant Open Goes to Jail

A woman who kept her restaurant open against Gov. Tim Walz’s orders was convicted and began her jail term the same week the state dropped charges against the man who toppled and destroyed a statue of Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota Capitol.

Lisa Hanson owns The Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro in Albert Lea, Minnesota. When Walz issued an executive order last year demanding that all bars and restaurants close their doors in the name of COVID-19 prevention, she did not comply. This resulted in her being convicted of six criminal misdemeanors on Thursday following a trial that took less than a week and a jury deliberation that took only a few hours.

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Customs and Border Protection Vaccination Rate Increased After Mandate Deadline

The number of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees that are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 rose to 17,192 after the federal mandate deadline, according to a document obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The DCNF earlier reported that as of Nov. 14, 16,500 border agents were fully vaccinated, and 4,165 border agents were unvaccinated. The federal mandate deadline was Nov. 22.

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Report: At Least Two Students at Barack Obama Global Prep Academy in Los Angeles Given COVID Jabs Without Their Parents’ Consent

At least two parents have accused a prep school in South Los Angeles of vaccinating their children without their permission after bribing them with pizza, according to NBC Los Angeles. One distressed mother claimed that her 13-year-old son was told not to tell his parents after he was given a Pfizer COVID-19 injection at Barack Obama Global Prep Academy.

Maribel Duarte told NBC LA on Monday that her son recently came home from school with a vaccine card after he had accepted the jab. The boy told his mom that he agreed to get the shot after he was offered pizza. Duarte said that the woman who administered the shot and signed the form told her son not to tell his parents because she didn’t want to get in trouble.

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Minnesota Surpasses 100,000 Breakthrough Cases of COVID-19

Minnesota has now surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 breakthrough cases, the Department of Health announced Monday.

103,764 fully-vaccinated Minnesotans have tested positive for the virus; 4,299 of them have been hospitalized and 737 have died.

The state has added 9,093 breakthrough cases since last Monday, when there were a total of 94,671.

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Commentary: Anthony Fauci and the Creation of the Bio-Security State

A new populist spirit, represented by Donald Trump, among others, has led to a reshuffling of seemingly settled ideological alliances.

The reshuffling is ongoing.

I know this because I find myself approving of at least parts of “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” the new bestseller book by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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