Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Fired Workers Sue New York City, Seek $250 Million and End to COVID Vaccine Mandate

The Defender | January 20, 2023

New York City public-sector workers who lost their jobs for refusing to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Thursday filed a $250 million lawsuit against the city and Mayor Eric Adams seeking to end the mandate.

The 72 fired workers are demanding the city overturn the mandate, reinstate their jobs and compensate them with punitive damages.

The workers argue the mandate should be found “arbitrary and capricious” given that “President Joe Biden, Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer have all declared that the pandemic is over,” and that it was already rescinded for private sector employees and students, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in the Bronx County Supreme Court of the State of New York, also alleges the plaintiffs were discriminated against with “willful or wanton negligence, or recklessness” and were mocked and ridiculed by their colleagues.

Many of the plaintiffs — formerly with the New York Police Department (NYPD), the New York Fire Department, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and other agencies — worked for the city for more than 20 years but now are unemployed, have lost their homes and their ability to support their families, the lawsuit states.

Attorney James Mermigis, who represents the plaintiffs, told The Defender :

“Anybody that goes into the city does not have to be vaccinated except for NYC public sector workers, including firemen, policemen, teachers.

“I just think it is absurd, especially once Mayor Adams lifted the mandate for private employees, that these people, who were heroes during COVID-19, still have the mandate.”

According to the lawsuit, Adams admitted, “I don’t think anything dealing with COVID is makes sense [sic], and there’s no logical pathway of what one can do[sic].”

The lawsuit also alleges the COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent disease transmission and that it is well-established that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits.

It also argues the plaintiffs have immunity from prior infection that should exempt them from any mandate, because “the scientific community has conclusively established that natural immunity provides strong and durable protection.”

According to the lawsuit, the city used, “a discriminatory practice to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with Petitioners in their exercise or enjoyment of their closely held religious beliefs,” by failing to engage in “cooperative dialogue” with them regarding their petitions for religious exemption, which were denied.

The plaintiffs seek $250 million in punitive damages.

“[Punitive damages] punish the city for its behavior towards its employees in the hopes that they will establish policies in the future that will prevent this from happening again,” Mermigis said.

Landmark win for New York healthcare workers may help city workers

Alleging New York City lacked the authority to institute COVID-19 vaccine mandates, city workers cited the landmark ruling earlier this month by the New York Supreme court, which struck down the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

In that case, which Children’s Health Defense (CHD) financed, the court held that the state’s health department lacked the authority to impose the mandate.

In the ruling, Judge Gerard Neri declared the mandate “null, void, and of no effect.”

The court also ruled that the state’s mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” on the basis that COVID-19 vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus, thereby eliminating any rational basis for such a policy.

That lawsuit was filed Oct. 20, 2022, by Medical Professionals for Informed Consent and additional plaintiffs against NYSDOH, New York Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul and Mary T. Bassett, the state’s health commissioner.

Commenting on the Supreme Court ruling in favor of healthcare workers, Mermigis said he believes the decision will help the workers’ case against the city.

“It puts less pressure on the judge reading our lawsuit knowing that another judge in New York also eliminated a healthcare vaccine mandate,” Mermigis said.

Michael Kane, CHD’s national grassroots organizer and founder of Teachers for Choice, said:

“It’s historic what Sujata Gibson and CHD were able to do and it’s part of the cascading falling dominoes. It really feels like it’s just a matter of time.

“They will delay as much as they can, but public opinion has shifted. The courts are no longer afraid. Judges are no longer afraid to rule lawfully, and we are starting to see that.”

Court of public opinion is shifting

More than 1,750 city workers were fired for refusing vaccination, including 36 members of the NYPD and 950 Department of Education employees, The New York Post reported.

Many of them brought — and won — lawsuits against the city. But the city appealed all of the rulings challenging its vaccine mandate for public employees, The Defender reported.

On Sept. 13, 2022, a Manhattan Supreme Court ruled that unvaccinated NYPD officer Alexander Deletto could keep his job. The city appealed that ruling.

In a Sept. 23, 2022, ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank reinstated the jobs of several unvaccinated members of the NYPD’s union, the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York. The city also appealed that decision.

On Oct. 5, 2022, Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio ruled New York City must reinstate a Staten Island firefighter. The city appealed that decision as well.

Later in October 2022, Justice Porzio struck down New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public workers, ruling in favor of 16 unvaccinated city workers who sued following their termination. That decision is currently being appealed.

According to Kane, however, the tides are turning — and that could be significant for the lawsuit filed Thursday.

Kane said:

“We are now seven days into the [CHD] victory and there has been no appeal. This is the first case for New York employees that have been fired that has stood for even seven days …

“The most important thing now is that the court of public opinion is different. I really feel that we are winning the majority in the court of public opinion, and that influences what happens in all of these courts …

“We are definitely rooting for him [Attorney Mermigis] and hoping he is very successful with the case.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

January 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | 1 Comment

Rumble files lawsuit to challenge New York’s social media censorship law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 1, 2022

Free speech video sharing platform  and its subscription platform  have sued New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James to challenge a social media censorship law that they say would force platforms to target constitutionally protected speech.

Rumble and Locals are being represented by the free speech nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and are joined in the lawsuit by constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh, the co-founder of the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

“The law is titled ‘Social media networks; hateful conduct prohibited,’ but it actually targets speech the state doesn’t like — even if that speech is fully protected by the ,” FIRE said in a statement.

The law forces a wide variety of internet platforms to publish a policy detailing how they’ll respond to posts that are deemed to “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence” based on protected classes such as religion, gender, or race.

It also requires platforms to create a way for visitors to complain about “hateful content” and requires them to respond to complaints directly. Platforms that refuse to comply can be investigated by the AG’s office, subpoenaed, and fined up to $1,000 per violation.

It comes into force on Saturday, December 3, 2022.

As is often the case with censorship laws, this Social Media Networks; Hateful Conduct Prohibited law doesn’t define “vilify,” “humiliate,” or “incite.”

Rumble suggested that this means it would “cover constitutionally protected speech like jokes, satire, political debates, and other online commentary.”

FIRE noted that the law’s scope is “entirely subjective” and suggested that it could target a wide range of First Amendment-protected speech such as “a comedian’s blog entry ‘vilifying’ men by mocking gender stereotypes” and most comments on almost any website “that could be considered by someone, somewhere, at some point in time, as ‘humiliating’ or ‘vilifying’ a group based on protected class status like religion, gender, or race.”

FIRE added: “Bloggers, commenters, websites, and apps around the country are ensnared by the New York law due to its broad definition of ‘social media networks’ as for-profit ‘service providers’ that ‘enable users to share any content.’ This vague wording means that the law can impact virtually any revenue-generating website that allows comments or posts and is accessible to New Yorkers — but no government entity can legally compel blogs or other internet platforms to adopt its broad definition of ‘hateful conduct.’”

“New York politicians are slapping a speech-police badge on my chest because I run a blog,” Volokh said. “I started the blog to share interesting and important legal stories, not to police readers’ speech at the government’s behest.”

Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski added: “New York’s law would open the door for the suppression of protected speech based on the complaints of activists and bullies. Rumble will always celebrate freedom and support creative independence, so I’m delighted to work with FIRE to help protect lawful online expression.”

This law is one of several attempts by New York to encroach on the First Amendment and push for the censorship of constitutionally protected speech. Other laws and proposals from the state have pushed to ban the sharing of violent crime videos online, ban gendered language in law, and allow officials to sue platforms that are suspected of “contributing” to the “knowing or reckless” spread of “misinformation.

December 2, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

What The Future Holds For Our Climate Leaders

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | July 28, 2022

If my posting has been a little light for the last month or so, it’s because I’ve been working on a big Report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the subject of energy storage as a means to back up electricity generation from wind and solar facilities. The Report is basically finished, and now going through an editing process. It will probably be published some time in September.

In doing the research for the Report, I have had occasion to look carefully into the plans of many countries and U.S. states that claim to be the “leaders” in climate virtue, specifically on the subject of how they intend to reach the goal of Net Zero carbon emissions from generation of electricity. These climate “leaders” include, in Europe, Germany and the UK, and in the U.S., California and New York. One would think that for any jurisdiction pursuing Net Zero ambitions, and seeking to abolish use of fossil fuels, it would be completely imperative that some energy storage solution absolutely must be found to provide back-up for the electricity system when the wind and sun are not producing. But what my research has shown is that every one of these jurisdictions seeking to be the leader toward Net Zero has given astoundingly insufficient consideration to the energy storage problem.

I previously have covered some of the more incredible deficiencies in the Net Zero planning of these places, for example in “Can California Really Achieve 85% Carbon-Free Electricity By 2030?” on May 16, and “And The Winner Is, Germany!” on June 29.

The single most astounding universal failure of all jurisdictions pursuing Net Zero is the failure to pursue any sort of working prototype or demonstration project of a Net Zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project on the basis of a blank check to be paid by the taxpayers and ratepayers. Who has ever heard of such a thing? in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct, and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that only supplied electricity to customers within a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin. Similarly, the provision of nuclear power began with small government-funded prototypes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by larger demonstration projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only in the late 1960s, twenty years into the effort and after feasibility and cost had been demonstrated, were the first large-scale commercial nuclear reactors built. No competent person would take any other approach.

But somehow our politicians have now become so filled with hubris that they think they can just order up a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will magically get invented and it will all work fine and not be financially ruinous, all by some arbitrarily-ordered date in the 2030s.

Today, all the mentioned jurisdictions and many more have embarked on ambitious Net Zero plans, and yet there does not exist anywhere in the world a functioning prototype or demonstration project that has actually achieved Net Zero in electricity generation, or anything even close. Indeed, it’s worse than that. There is a fairly substantial project that set out to achieve Net Zero (although they weren’t using the term at the time, which was 2014), and has fallen remarkably short. That project is on the island of El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. El Hierro installed a collection of wind turbines and a pumped storage/hydro reservoir as back-up to great fanfare, but it struggles to achieve 50% of the electricity from the wind/storage system over the course of a year. The rest comes from a diesel generator. The system operator puts out monthly statistics (with substantial lag), typically with excited verbiage about “tons of carbon emissions saved,” without ever admitting that the system has totally failed in its original goal of getting rid of the fossil fuel piece. Instead they now have three redundant systems for providing the electricity — wind turbines, hydro reservoir and turbines, and the diesel generator — all of which must be paid for, and all to provide the same electricity that the diesel generator was fully capable of providing on its own. The cost has been calculated at about 80 euro cents per KWh, roughly 7 to 8 times average U.S. consumer rates; but the cost is largely hidden from El Hierro ratepayers by subsidies from the EU and government of Spain.

My research also covered in depth the question of how much energy storage would be needed for various jurisdictions to fully back up a predominantly wind/solar generation system without any use of fossil fuels. Credible calculations previously discussed here have included the calculation of Roger Andrews, done in 2018, that either California or Germany would require at least about 25,000 GWh of energy storage to back up a fully wind/solar generation system for a year without use of fossil fuels; and a calculation by Ken Gregory done on very similar methodology in late 2021 showing that the full U.S. (lower 48 states) would require about 250,000 GWh of storage for the same purpose. These are truly huge numbers.

Facing such requirements to reach Net Zero and banish fossil fuels from the electricity system, the plans of these jurisdictions for acquisition of storage are quite shocking. The consultancy Wood Mackenzie reported on April 11, 2022 that Germany had announced plans to acquire all of 8.91 GWh of energy storage by 2031 — a ridiculously puny amount if Germany is actually serious about Net Zero. Utility Dive reported on April 12, 2022 that New York had plans to acquire all of 6 GW of storage (likely corresponding to about 24 GWh, since the batteries are to be of the lithium-ion type that generally have capacity for four hours of discharge at full capacity). This figure is only slightly less puny than Germany’s. Another piece from Utility Dive on April 6, 2022 reported that California’s regulators had ordered utilities to acquire what would be the equivalent of about 42 GWh of storage as part of the Net Zero plans of that jurisdiction. All of these storage acquisition plans are in the range of about 0.1% to 0.2% of the storage that would actually be needed to achieve the Net Zero goal.

So what will the future of energy usage actually look like in these places as fossil fuels get phased out and wind and solar take over, with woefully insufficient energy storage to cover the intermittencies? To get an idea, let’s take another look at the Report for California put out by consultancy Energy Innovations on May 9, with the title “Achieving an Equitable and Reliable 85 Percent Clean Electricity System by 2030 in California.” Note that this in not actually Net Zero, but only 85% of same. Here are a few tidbits. First, their graphic on the nature of the transition:

We’re going to have a “paradigm shift” in “RA,” which seems to mean “Resource Adequacy.” Check out that list on the right under “clean reliability resources” — “Energy availability depends on weather.” Are you starting to get the picture now?

Read through the report until you get into pages in the mid-30s, where the subject becomes what they euphemistically call “demand response.” It’s a lot of bafflegab to make it seem oh so pleasant. Excerpt:

Demand-side measures can substitute for supply-side resources and therefore contribute to resource diversity; their increased availability hedges against the risk of deploying new clean supply-side resources too slowly (including generators and storage). For example, the technical report finds that deploying Load Shift could reduce load by 1,500 MW in the early evening hours solar output falls, hedging against battery deployment challenges such as supply chain. . . . Demand-side measures also provide complementary reliability, resiliency, and public safety benefits to supply-side solutions or imports, as they lie closest to the affected load. While centralized generators provide the bulk of our power under most system conditions, they can be rendered less effective or useless under certain disaster conditions.

This is bureaucratese meaning “we’ll turn off your electricity at random times when we feel like it.” Get ready for this, California, Germany, et al. I guess New York is on the same path too, but I have my secret escape plans ready.

July 31, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

New York gun control law requires social media checks

Samizdat | July 2, 2022

New York has adopted a sweeping gun control law aiming to ban firearms from a number of “sensitive areas,” including Times Square, also requiring social media checks for gun permit applicants to ensure their “character and conduct.”

The Democrat-sponsored bill advanced through the New York legislature during a special session on Friday, with Governor Kathy Hochul signing it soon after.

“This to me is the embodiment of what it means to be an American,” Hochul said of the law soon after it passed the state Senate, adding she would sign it “in honor of our Fourth of July weekend.”

The law bans guns from a long list of “sensitive areas” around the Empire State, such as popular tourist sites in New York City, as well as schools, libraries, universities, government buildings, playgrounds and parks, public transit and stadiums. Residents will also no longer be allowed to carry firearms into private businesses unless the owners post clear signage stating it is permitted.

A more controversial measure in the bill requires those looking to obtain a gun permit to send the government “a list of former and current social media accounts… from the past three years” in order to confirm the “applicant’s character and conduct.” Additionally, they will be made to submit at least four “character references” who can “attest to the applicant’s good moral character.”

The bill was passed during a special legislative session called after the US Supreme Court shot down a century-old gun control law in New York last week. While the provision forced permit-seekers to demonstrate that they required a gun for self-defense, the court concluded that it violated the 14th Amendment “by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.”

Though Democratic supporters have said it will help “make New Yorkers safe,” the new legislation has faced intense criticism from Republicans and gun advocates, with the executive director of the New York State Firearms Association, Aaron Dorr, blasting it as “the kind of bill that the Gestapo would be proud of.”

“This will never survive a court challenge,” he added.

GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin – who won the party’s nomination for an upcoming governor’s race earlier this week – was also highly critical, arguing the law would only make residents less safe.

“Only under one party Democrat rule can criminals run amuck armed with illegal guns, while law abiding New Yorkers are stripped of their right to safely and securely carry a firearm solely for self-defense,” Zeldin said.

Debate over gun control has been rekindled by a spate of mass shootings in recent months – including a rampage in Buffalo, New York which left 10 dead in May – prompting new legislation across a number of states and on the national level. Late last week, President Joe Biden signed a major bipartisan gun bill into law, aiming to limit access to firearms from those considered dangerous, the most significant legislation of its kind to clear Congress in nearly 30 years.

July 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Challenging New York’s Removal of Religious Exemption for Schoolchildren

By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | May 26, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided not to take up an appeal by parents seeking to challenge New York lawmakers’ 2019 removal of the religious exemption to vaccination requirements for schoolchildren.

The court’s May 23 order announcing its decision not to hear arguments in the case F.F. v. New York allows a lower court decision to stand. The lower court concluded the parents’ arguments lacked merit and the state was not targeting religion when it eliminated the religious exemption.

“Today we learned that the U.S Supreme Court will not hear the religious repeal case we have argued for the last almost three years,” lead attorney Michael Sussman told Autism Action Network (AAN).

Sussman said in an AAN email to members:

“As those who have followed the case know, the legislature in NY repealed the 50-year-old religious exemption for students in June 2019. It did so with hateful rhetoric accusing religious people of being fraudsters.

“I believe this violated the first amendment which this court explicitly has held does not suffer any state action smitten with religious intolerance. I had expected this court to reaffirm this principle, but four justices did not vote to hear our case.

“So, we have lost. The only hope now is in the state legislature and hope is hard to find there.”

Every year, the Supreme Court receives about 10,000 petitions for certiorari but hears only about 80 of them. If the case pertains to state law, or is comprised of parties from only one state, the chance that the Supreme Court will hear the appeal is small.

The lawsuit originated after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on June 13, 2019, signed into law a bill that repealed the religious vaccine exemption for children whose parents or guardians hold genuine religious beliefs that do not permit the child to receive vaccinations.

The state law applies to students under 18 in both public and private schools and prohibits unvaccinated children from attending school or daycare in the state unless they have a medical exemption.

“The science is crystal clear: Vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to keep our children safe,” Cuomo said after signing the bill. “While I understand and respect freedom of religion, our first job is to protect public health.”

The appeal stemmed from a lawsuit filed on July 10, 2019, by attorneys Sussman and Children’s Health Defense chairman and chief legal counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on behalf of 55 families in the New York State Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the legislature’s repeal of the religious exemption to vaccination.

The families who brought the case included those from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. They argued the repeal of the exemption violated their First Amendment rights, exhibited hostility toward religion and breached protections under the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, among other issues.

The families claimed the policy forced them to either violate their beliefs or homeschool their children.

“In lobbying for its passage, numerous legislators publicly mocked and ridiculed those seeking religious exemptions for their children, and the legislature left intact a medical exemption,” the parents’ brief stated.

“There is no dispute the repeal [of the religious exemption] has put tens of thousands of students to the Hobson’s choice of violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or being denied the right to attend any manner of in-person schooling.”

Sussman said there was ample evidence leading up to the passing of the bill that state legislators had shown open hospitality toward faith and people of faith.

“Comments of leaders of the New York legislature spoke of profound religious intolerance, which motivated the repeal of the religious exemptions,” Sussman told AAN.

For example, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins was quoted in a newspaper referring to the repeal by saying, “We have chosen science over rhetoric.”

Assembly sponsor Jeffrey Dinowitz said in a television interview, “There is nothing, nothing in the Jewish religion, in the Christian religion, in the Muslim religion … that suggests that you can’t get vaccinated. It is just utter garbage.”

State Sen. Brad Hoylman, Senate sponsor, deprecated those who hold religious exemptions, stating, “Let’s face it. Non-medical exemptions are essentially religious loopholes, where people often pay for a consultant to try to worm their way out of public health requirements that the rest of us are following.”

In an editorial, State Sen. James Skoufis referred to the “so-called ‘religious exemption,’” writing, “The time is now to end the state’s nonsensical and dangerous religious exemption.”

Skoufis added, “We’ve already wasted too much time debating this issue.”

Skoufis failed to mention that neither the Senate nor the Assembly convened even a single hearing on the topic.

“Short of some cataclysmic political upheaval, there is no future for ‘religious exemption’ in New York,” John Gilmore, executive director of AAN, said in an email.

But, he said, “that does not mean there is no hope that the power of the state to make vaccinations mandatory for our children and adults cannot be taken away from our overlords in Albany.”

Several other states prohibit K-12 schools from granting religious exemptions to required vaccinations for schoolchildren, including California, Mississippi, Connecticut, West Virginia and Maine.

May 26, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment

The (Undercover) Epicenter Nurse | Episode Nine

Perspectives on the Pandemic | June 9, 2020

Erin Marie Olszewski is a Nurse-turned-investigative journalist, who has spent the last few months on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic, on the inside in two radically different settings. Two hospitals. One private, the other public. One in Florida, the other in New York.

And not just any New York public hospital, but the “epicenter of the epicenter” itself, the infamous Elmhurst in Donald Trump’s Queens. As a result of these diametrically opposed experiences, she has the ultimate “perspective on the pandemic”. She has been where there have been the most deaths attributed to Covid-19 and where there have been the least. Erin enlisted in the Army when she was 17. She deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Part of her duties involved overseeing aid disbursement and improvements to hospital facilities. While in country she received the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service, and was wounded in combat.

Erin eventually retired as a sergeant, and became a civilian nurse in 2012. Erin is a medical freedom and informed consent advocate. She co-founded the Florida Freedom Alliance but no longer has any connection with the organization. Watch more episodes of Perspectives on the Pandemic here:

Episode 1: https://dai.ly/x7ubcws

Episode 2: https://dai.ly/k7af1wKOAvcoA7w5DkZ

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA

Episode 4: https://youtu.be/cwPqmLoZA4s

Episode 5: https://dai.ly/k3l3VyZ2YQv6Zbw5VqE

Episode 6: https://youtu.be/3f0VRtY9oTs

Episode 7: https://youtu.be/2JbOvjtnPpE

Episode 8: https://youtu.be/WlLmt6_w_AM (As of publication of this video, the producers are still awaiting comment from Elmhurst Hospital). Produced by Libby Handros and John Kirby, The Press and the Public Project. Ref 7814

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

NY State Dept. of Health Still Can’t Provide Any Proof that Vaccinated Children are Healthier than Unvaccinated

Informed Consent Action Network | December 29, 2021

Last month, yet another letter had to be sent to the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and the New York State Education Department (NYSED) calling out their failure to provide any proof to dispute extremely important and revealing data reflecting that unvaccinated children have far better health outcomes than vaccinated children.

Soon after that letter was sent, a new Acting Commissioner of NYSDOH was appointed and so a letter was also sent to Dr. Mary Bassett, welcoming her to her new role and asking that she provide proof disputing these findings.

As explained to Dr. Bassett through the historical correspondence detailing the issue, on May 21, 2021, the attorneys that regularly represent ICAN sent a demand letter on behalf of a group comprising all the families of unvaccinated children in four contiguous school districts in New York. The demand explained that there is an abundance of evidence to support that unvaccinated children have better health outcomes than vaccinated children and shared the following results for the children in the four school districts:

Although not shocking to ICAN, these results should elicit a reaction from and a response by public health authorities and an education department which mandates vaccines.  Instead, NYSED chose to completely ignore these findings and sent an inadequate, half-page response almost a full month later.

On August 11, 2021, a response letter was sent to NYSDOH pointing out the glaring omission from the NYSDOH’s response of even a shred of evidence to support that the growing rate and list of chronic diseases and disabilities affecting children are not caused by vaccination. NYSDOH was therefore warned that, absent receipt of this proof, the attorneys have been directed to commence an action challenging the school immunization requirements for kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Still no proof has been provided by the NYSDOH.

One must continue to wonder whether there is any data that could be submitted to these public health agencies that will change their unwavering belief in and allegiance to vaccines. And aren’t they troubled by the fact that they cannot produce any evidence to support their claims? Let’s see if the new Acting Commissioner provides any better response than her predecessor.

December 30, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The Unvaxxed May Soon Be Shipped to Quarantine Camps

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | December 30, 2021

According to President Biden, “a winter of death” awaits anyone who rejects the experimental COVID jab which, by the way, has been consistently shown to do far more harm than good.

A December 16, 2021, White House statement reads: “For the unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death. For themselves, their family and the hospital they’ll soon overwhelm.” That exact sentence was reiterated the next day by COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients during a virtual press conference.

Backlash Over Biden’s Callousness

As reported by MSN’s Claire Goforth,1 the “prediction” didn’t go over well with the public. “Most people hate it. They feel it’s callous and cruel,” Goforth said, quoting a number of Twitter responses, including one from John D. Davidson:

“If you wanted to make half the country hate the administration and resist its edicts and advice, it would be hard to come up with a better strategy than this.”

A Twitter user by the name Martyr Made noted, “The aggressive Us/Them language in this White House message is insane.”2 Olivia Nuzzi, a Washington, D.C., reporter for New York Magazine tweeted, “Who is this for? Unvaccinated Americans are not going to be persuaded by messaging like this.”3

White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain defended Biden saying “we have a duty to warn people what they are facing if unvaccinated.”4 But from my perspective, the rub is that they continue to pretend that lies are truth and truth is lies. Everything is upside-down, and many are rejecting this “winter of woe” message for the simple fact that they know the opposite is true.

If we are to go by actual science and data, the warning Biden issued should have gone out to the vaccinated, because everything points to the double and triple jabbed being at increased risk for infection, especially with the Omicron variant.

One reason for this is because the COVID jab reprograms your innate and adaptive immune systems, causing immune depletion.5 Data also show that the more heavily “vaccinated” a population is, the higher the case rate gets.6 And even this fails to account for the massive increase risk of dying from the jab or becoming permanently disabled, as many jabbed millions have already suffered.

Former WHO Adviser Tells Vaccinated to Quarantine Over Winter

Back in August 2021, the U.K. Column interviewed professor Christian Perronne, a French infectious disease expert, long-time vaccine policy chief and former vice president of the World Health Organization’s European Advisory Group, who issued the opposite — and likely far more accurate — warning:7

“Vaccinated people are at risk of the new variants … It’s been proven in different countries, so vaccinated people should be put in quarantine and should be isolated from society. Unvaccinated people are not dangerous; vaccinated people are dangerous to others.

It’s proven in Israel now. I’m in contact with many physicians in Israel. They’re having big problems now; severe cases in hospitals are among vaccinated people. And in the UK also, you had a larger vaccination program and also there are problems.”

Not surprisingly, despite impeccable credentials, Peronne has been censored and shunned for his contrarian views on COVID countermeasures, the COVID gene transfer shots in particular. During his interview, he didn’t mince words, referring to the European COVID-19 policy as “completely stupid.”

Are Prison Camps for the Unjabbed Next?

As predicted, we are rapidly approaching a time when the unvaccinated might be imprisoned for no other reason than their refusal of an experimental gene transfer injection. In early January 2021, a New York bill (A416) was introduced that would give the governor and his or her delegates the power to remove and/or indefinitely detain anyone suspected of being a threat to public health.

Detainees would be kept in a “medical facility or other appropriate facility” — in other words, a medical prison camp — for a maximum of 60 days, although a court could extend the detention in 90-day increments, indefinitely. As reported by Reason :8

“The bill’s language is noticeably vague in defining the parameters around disease type, leaving the government wide latitude in conducting its risk analysis … The legislation was originally introduced during the 2015-16 session in response to the Ebola virus … Though [SARS-CoV-2] is a serious virus, it is also no Ebola, which carries an average case fatality rate of 50%, with some outbreaks reaching as high as 90% …

[T]he vagueness of its approach gives the state a great deal of discretion in locking people up who might have some sort of unnamed illness, as well as people who merely interacted with someone who might have that illness.”

The bill comes up for a vote in the New York Senate and Assembly sometime in the next legislative session, which begins January 5, 2022.9 In addition to indefinite detention for poorly specified reasons, the bill would “require an individual who has been exposed to or infected by a contagious disease to complete an appropriate, prescribed course of treatment, preventive medication or vaccination.”

In other words, this bill legalizes the forced vaccination of anyone who is detained under the mere suspicion of being infected with something or having been in close proximity to someone suspected of being infected. As reported by Rights and Freedoms :10

“There is no explicit reference to what types of contagious diseases qualify a person to be removed from public life, detained in a facility, and forced into medical treatment and vaccination. Anyone can technically be held in isolation until they are deemed non-contagious, which would also raise questions over whether those carrying HIV/AIDS could be released back into society.

The bill has received an overwhelmingly negative response on the NY Senate website.11 Commenters have stated that, ‘this is disturbing and sets up a terrible precedent for future law. The governor can basically detain whoever [he/she] likes on the basis of scanty evidence.

This is un-American. It reminiscent of the Soviet Union locking up political opponents on the basis that they were ‘mentally unstable.’ We CANNOT allow this in our state.’ ‘This is a violation of fundamental human rights. The government should be working for the people, not locking them up without cause.’”

Australia Among the First to Test Medical Imprisonment Model

If you think being tossed into a prison camp without cause or recourse is impossible — after all, this is the United States of America, the land of the free, home of the brave — think again. Australia, another shining star of democracy, has backslidden into totalitarianism at a speed that has everyone’s head spinning.

The Australian government has gone full speed ahead, building a massive COVID quarantine camp, complete with barbed wire fences, guards and video surveillance. Once you’re in, you can’t just waltz out whenever you want to. In the video above, Hayley Hodgson describes what it was like to be detained and transferred to a COVID internment camp, even though she wasn’t sick.

Video surveillance placed her with a friend who had tested positive. They ran her license plate to retrieve her address and showed up at her house, telling her she had to quarantine. Even if you test negative, you still have to spend 14 days in a quarantine camp if you’ve been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. If you refuse, you’re fined $5,000 and forcibly taken there by police anyway.

“You feel like you’re in prison … It’s inhumane what they’re doing,” she says. “You are so small. They just overpower you. You’re literally nothing. It’s like, ‘You do what we say, or … we’ll lock you up for longer.’”

If someone can threaten to extend your stay in this “health hotel,” just what kind of medicine are we dealing with? Clearly, this is a prison model, not a health care model. When have you ever been in a hospital and the nurse tells you, “If you don’t eat your pudding, we’re keeping you here another three months”?

Life in the Biosecurity State

Based on Hodgson’s description of the camp, you don’t get much in terms of medical attention. One shudders to think what would happen to someone who actually had a severe case of COVID in there. Will hazmat suit-equipped police drop you at your room and then you don’t see them again unless you’re caught breaking some rule?

Food is delivered and dropped outside your door once a day. Each room has a 2×2 meter deck where you can go, but if you step outside your room or designated outdoor area without a mask, you’re fined $5,000. She was also told that additional infractions would result in her stay being extended past the 14 days — even though she wasn’t sick and there was no reason to keep her there in the first place.

“You’re literally treated like a prisoner in there,” she says. If you’re triple jabbed and think that means you’ll never see the inside of one of these prisons, think again. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been double or triple jabbed.

If you’re found to have been in close contact with someone who tests positive, in you go. And there’s no legal process you can turn to for help if you disagree with the decree to quarantine. During her stay, three teenagers — all of whom had tested negative — managed to escape the camp. The manhunt that ensued is further evidence that we’re dealing with a prison model and nothing else.

US Has Hundreds of Ready-Made Prison Camps

While Australia is building its second camp, the U.S. already has 800 FEMA camps ready for action. As reported by AMG News :12

“FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations … The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby.

The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.”

The article goes on to list the many executive orders that can work together to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively allowing government to seize control over all aspects of life, from food production and transportation to communications and health care functions.

There’s even an executive order that allows the government to mobilize civilians into “work brigades” to carry out whatever functions are deemed necessary, and one that allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate entire communities. To find the FEMA camp nearest you, check out the state listings in the AMG News article.13 Most states have three or more.

Interpret the Media Narrative — They Want Civil War

If you’ve been paying attention over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that you can almost always predict what the next phase of the narrative is going to be. They “advertise” or pave the way for the evolving narrative by putting out articles slanted in a given direction.

Based on recent headlines, I suspect “the powers that be” are hoping to incite a civil war. “CIA Advisor: US Is ‘Closer to Civil War’ Than Thought Possible,” the Daily Mail claims.14 “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War,” an opinion columnist at The New York Times declares.15 “US Closer to Civil War Than Most Would Like to Believe, New Book Says,” announces The Guardian.16

According to Dr. Barbara Walter, a political science professor who serves on the Political Instability Task Force, the U.S. meets several criteria that historically have served as indicators that an “open insurgency” may be imminent. In her book, “How Civil Wars Start,” she writes:17

“No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war. If you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States … has entered very dangerous territory.”

Government Has Designated the Enemy, and It’s Us

The problem here is that while authoritarian politicians keep paying lip service to “democracy,” their own actions are anything but. Just who is undermining democracy? If you believe the news and CIA advisers, it’s the people who want the Constitution to stand and be adhered to that are the enemies of democracy. Never mind the mental gymnastics required to get to that conclusion.

It’s not hard to predict a scenario in which authoritarian leaders, acting on a falsely constructed narrative that a civil war is imminent, might start rounding up “dissidents.” And that’s in addition to the already existing, thinly veiled threat of tossing the unvaccinated into indefinite detention.

I agree with Walter’s assessment that we’re in dangerous territory, but not for the same reasons as she suggests. I would also argue that just about every country is a powder keg ready to blow, and for the same reason — people are being tyrannized by their governments and by unelected health authorities that claim powers they do not legally have.

Take England, for example. Entrepreneur and COVID blogger Steve Kirsch was recently notified that an anti-COVID restrictions campaign member had been detained for 28 days under the Mental Health Act for not wearing a mask to a dentist appointment.18 Normally, it’s quite difficult to get a person sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but not anymore.

Refusing to wear a mask apparently qualifies as an acute mental health disorder warranting a month-long stay in a psych ward.

The man, Charlie Cunningham, is reportedly being held at Littlemore Mental Hospital in Oxford, “where he’s being deprived of sleep under the pretext of being suicidal,” according to the woman who contacted Kirsch. She added, “He’s now going to be detained over Christmas and New Year — [he’s] very upset as he feels he’s been kidnapped and being held against his will …”

While all the articles mentioned earlier that warn of civil war blame the decline in democracy on the Trump administration, the Trump administration can hardly be blamed for the civil rights abuses and power grabs that are occurring today. It’s time to judge each tree by its fruit. That said, knowing that a civil war would serve the totalitarian takeover agenda, it would be wise to make sure our resistance remains a peaceful one.

Sources and References

December 30, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Covidian migration patterns

el gato malo – bad cattitude – december 24, 2021

these graphics are from longtime gatopal™ kbirb who has done so much excellent analysis lo these 21 months.

these are especially great.

let’s look:

(note this is only thru july 2021 and seems to be ongoing and is likely larger by now)

well, that’s not terribly ambiguous, is it? (though based on everything i’ve seen in the mountain west, net migration there looks strongly positive)

we can see that if we get more granular:

big winners: the free states of florida, texas, arizona

big losers: the karentopias of california, new york, illinois

this really speaks volumes.

red v blue gets extreme:

and it sure looks like “access to education” is a major driver.

though this graphic (from NYT ) has interesting overlay too.

speaking as one who spent the summer in a free state only to return to the assault and dingbattery of a masked up, restricted, and vaxxpassed puerto rico, it is JARRING.

once you see that this is not really a thing, that life is normal in half the country, and that continuing to play this game or even care about it is utterly optional, there is no closing your eyes again.

you cannot go back to a mask mandate grocery store and not see all these people as having mental health issues (or at the very least some sort of societal spinal atrophy that renders them unable to support a republic.)

half the people i know are talking about leaving PR. it’s become intolerable, especially once you have seen the options firsthand. hearing the same about new york, SF, LA, etc.

it’s just endless and capricious and increasingly aimed at deliberately making life miserable for any who refuse to comply. this round feels personal. “all you have to do to make the persecution end is comply!” it’s an oppressively ubiquitous mantra and the “jim covid” laws are entering every phase of life.

but one trip to florida and the spell breaks.

you realize you’re being conned because you see it first hand and remember.

maybe you moved there because you wanted your kids to see the inside of a classroom at some point before 2024.

this derangement is going to seriously redraw some american maps.

the damage is not the pandemic, it’s the policy. that’s why this is divided so starkly by donkey vs elephant. covid has been a political, not an epidemiological crisis and remains one.

and the more we can support state’s rights and thereby create more and more varied choice for people to pursue their happiness, the more this flow will become a torrent.

hopefully the last people out of the karen-capitals will remember to turn off the lights when they leave…

December 24, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NY State Senate Passes Draconian Bill

By Stephen Lendman | April 6, 2021

Passed by New York state senators, draconian NY State Assembly Bill A416 states the following:

“Upon determining by clear and convincing evidence (sic) that the health of others is or may be endangered (sic), the governor may order the removal and/or detention of such… person(s) or group of such persons by issuing a single order (sic).”

“Identifying such persons either by name or by a reasonably specific description of the individuals or group being detained,” they shall be indefinitely held “in a medical facility or other appropriate private facility.”

The measure targets individuals unwilling to self-inflict harm by hazardous to health covid jabs.

If taken, they risk contraction of the illness they’re supposed to protect against — but don’t.

They also risk possible irreversible harm to health or death if taken as directed.

If New York Governor Cuomo signs this draconian measure into law, and if similar measures are adopted by other states and/or congressional legislation is passed and signed into law on this issue, preserving and protecting health by refusing to be jabbed with experimental, unapproved, toxic drugs could be considered the equivalent of a criminal offense.

Involuntary/indefinite detention if ordered will become de facto concentration camp imprisonment.

Under federal law, experimental drugs cannot be mandated.

The Nuremberg Code requires voluntary consent on matters relating to human health.

It prohibits mandatory participation in medical experiments.

Procedures must yield positive results that benefit individuals and society.

None of the above applies to mass-jabbing with toxic, experimental drugs that don’t protect and risk serious harm to health or death.

Under NY State Assembly Bill A416, healthy individuals and ones they came in contact with can be labeled “disease carriers” — by politicians, their public heath handmaidens, and/or go-along judicial authorities.

Longterm involuntarily detention may follow under draconian conditions able to destroy health.

If in the “opinion of (New York) governor” Cuomo or his minions, anyone considered a public health threat — even when healthy and threatening no one — can be forcibly interned against their will.

According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR):

“Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.”

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.”

“No one shall be deprived of his (or her) liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.”

“Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release.”

“Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his (or her) detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.

“Anyone who has been the victim of unlawful arrest or detention shall have an enforceable right to compensation.”

Depriving individuals of liberty for refusal to self-inflict harm by jabbing with hazardous drugs is a flagrant breach of international law.

Is that where things are heading in New York?

Is something similar coming in other states, possibly nationwide in the US?

Will rule of law protections no longer apply when conflict with federal, state or local diktats?

Is guilt by accusation the new standard?

If NY State Assembly Bill A416 and similar measures are adopted in the US, rights guaranteed by international law and the Constitution no longer will apply.

Tyranny enforced by police state harshness will be the new standard — including indefinite detention of anyone accused of virtually anything no matter how untrue.

What’s going on in the US and West ominously resembles how the scourge of Nazism imposed tyrannical rule in Germany.

Is that where things are heading?

Fundamental rights are disappearing in plain sight while Americans and others in the West are distracted by bread, circuses, and establishment media propaganda.

April 6, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | 2 Comments

New York’s Covid Vaccine Passport Makes No Sense

By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute For Political Economy | March 29, 2021

NY Governor Cuomo is establishing a Covid passport that will show vaccination or a recent negative test. It will serve as permission to enter events or venues.

Will this passport be efficacious, or is its purpose to get us accustomed to a “your papers please” way of life?

Allegedly, the combination of people with vaccinations and those recovered from infection have, or are, bringing about “herd immunity.” If so, what is the point of a passport?

There are credible reports that some who have been vaccinated have nevertheless come down with Covid, which raises doubt about the efficacy of the vaccine. There are other reports that antibodies produced by the vaccines are not long lasting.

How recent must the Covid test be to make the passport valid. A person could have a negative test and catch Covid on the way home. If the passport relies on a negative test, the passport will have to expire after some designated period unless the passport is renewed with a new test.

There is also the problem that the widely used PCR test produces false negatives and false positives. In other words, is the information on which the passport is issued valid information?

We can laugh at the passport as a silly over-reaction to a virus that in most cases is hardly more dangerous than flu, or we can understand it as a control measure over our freedom of movement and association. We are the safer if we view it as the latter.

Police already have too much power to invade homes without warrants and to stop and search people on the streets without warrants. “Probable cause” has been used to curtail civil liberty.

I am convinced that no health purpose will be served by Covid passports, and that the public should protest the introduction of a Soviet-style internal passport.

Once established, the Covid passport will be a boon for Big Pharma. A yearly booster shot will be decreed, and without it your passport will expire.

Keep in mind that Florida avoided lockdowns and mask mandates and has no worse infection and death rate than lockdown states.

Notice also that many highly qualified experts have criticized the lockdowns, mask mandates, use of untested vaccines, and the prohibition on using safe effective treatments such as HCQ and Ivermectin. Why were their voices censored and the information kept from the public? The only explanation I can think of is that Covid is being used for an unstated agenda. We should not be deceived into cooperating with this unstated agenda.

A democracy that censors expert testimony and prohibits public debate is well on its way to a police state.

A public that can be stampeeded by orchestrated fear into being jabbed with vaccines that could be more dangerous than Covid is not a public that can expect to remain in freedom.

March 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment

Governor Andrew Cuomo Imposes Vaccination Passports in New York

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | March 4, 2021

Some politicians can’t stop coming up with new ways of bossing people around and preventing the return of normal life, all in the name of countering coronavirus. A prime example of such coronavirus tyrants is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

This week, Cuomo, who has been imposing on people in New York for a year some of the harshest coronavirus-related restrictions in America, announced he is rolling out yet another rights abuse. Cuomo is requiring in a new “pilot program” that people obtain and present vaccination passports to gain entrance to certain places and take part in various activities that have been curtailed by government over the last year.

Cuomo calls the vaccination passports Excelsior Passes. No matter the name the state’s vaccination passports are marketed under, they are a mechanism for government tracking people’s movements, pressuring people into taking experimental coronavirus vaccines that carry risk of serious injury and death, and implementing a vaccinations-based caste system.

Elizabeth Elizalde writes at the New York Post that in the New York state pilot program people are being required to present their vaccination passports “in order to enter sports arenas, theaters and other businesses.” To receive a vaccination passport, Elizalde writes, a person must prove he has received one of the experimental coronavirus vaccines or that he has recently tested negative for coronavirus.

With time — after the experimental coronavirus vaccines have become more widely available — expect Cuomo to adjust the program so proof of injection with one of the not-really vaccines will be the only means to receive an Excelsior Pass and, thereby, the ability to take part legally in many activities.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute

March 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries