‘Officer Down’: Small Towns Shocked by Surge in Ambush Cop Killings
Epoch Times – Crinkle-cut fries are better than curly fries.”
And with that, Officer Billy Collins got the last word in on a long-running household controversy.
The joke was the last thing 17-year-old Danielle Collins heard from her father as she left the house to pick up the family’s dinner.
A far different domestic dispute was unfolding at a nearby residence at that very moment.
“At 5:45 p.m., we got the call that a suicidal guy with a gun was arguing with his wife and had fired a shot in the air,” Sgt. Coby Barton of the Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office said. “Billy got there three minutes before I did. The location was just 250 yards from his house.”
The scene was in the 400 block of Green Tree Road, in the little rural village of Doyline, Louisiana, a community of 800 residents policed by a two-person department.
That night, on July 9, 2021, Officer William “Billy” Earl Collins Jr. of the Doyline Police Department became one of the 28 cops killed by ambush in the United States in 2021, as of Nov. 30.
When Barton and Lt. Chuck Clark arrived on the scene, Collins was talking to a woman at the rear of his patrol car. Then shots rang out.
“It all happened in three or four seconds,” Barton said. “Billy was trying to protect the woman when a shot struck him in the right side of his head, and he went down. The second shot tore through my car. The third blast blew out the front passenger window of Chuck’s patrol car.”
The rounds came from a 12-gauge shotgun fired by the husband of the woman.
“He fired only three shots from just inside the front door of the trailer house. They were 3 1/2-inch magnum shells loaded with double-aught buck,” Barton said.
One large caliber pellet missed Barton’s head by an inch. Another went by six inches from his upper arm and shoulder. The holes remain in the interior of his car.
To Barton, those three or four seconds transpired in slow motion. He grabbed his rifle and a trauma kit and radioed, “Officer down!”
Barton took cover behind his patrol car as the woman screamed to him to come over to help Collins. Clark positioned his car near Barton’s to form a better shield for Collins and the woman. He then grabbed his rifle and got down on the ground. The only thing going through his mind was making sure everybody was safe.
After that, Barton said, things went eerily quiet. The shooting stopped. The hysterical woman “went catatonic.”
Only four shots had been fired, all by the deranged husband.
When asked why he and Clark hadn’t returned fire, Barton cited concern for the safety of those in the area.
“Once you send a round, you can’t take it back,” he said. “We couldn’t safely shoot back without the risk of hurting someone else. There are houses behind the trailer house. People were coming out of the woods back there to see what was going on.”
US Regulators Authorize COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doses for 16- and 17-Year-Olds
Epoch Times – U.S. drug regulators on Thursday authorized booster doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for 16- and 17-year-olds.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited in its announcement data showing the vaccine becomes significantly less effective over time.
“Since we first authorized the vaccine, new evidence indicates that vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 is waning after the second dose of the vaccine for all adults,” Dr. Peter Marks, a top FDA official, said in a statement.
“A single booster dose of the vaccine for those vaccinated at least six months prior will help provide continued protection against COVID-19 in this and older age groups,” he added.
The decision drew immediate pushback, with experts noting that young, healthy people are at low risk of severe COVID-19 and at elevated risk of heart inflammation following vaccination.
“I understand that the third dose will boost their level of neutralizing antibiotics. But if the goal of this vaccine is protection against serious illness—which is a reasonable goal and it’s the goal for every other vaccine—two doses already do that. So why do we need a third dose? Where’s the evidence that a third dose will protect children to a greater extent against serious illness?” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center, professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel, told The Epoch Times.
“And that evidence has to be there because the 16- and 17-year-old is at highest risk of myocarditis,” Offit added.
Dr. Mike Saag said he hasn’t seen specific data for the age group but that the move makes sense given the waning effectiveness of vaccines.
“I think that all individuals, regardless of age, will ultimately receive ‘booster’ shots 6 months after completion of the initial 2-dose vaccination. The biology and epidemiologic data support this. What remains unknown is how long protective immunity will last after receiving the third shot,” Saag, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Medicine, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Data from approximately 200 people who got a Pfizer booster was used as evidence for the authorization, the FDA said.
Real-world data that has become available on the post-vaccination conditions “enabled the FDA to reassess the benefits and risks of the use of the vaccine in a wider population” and the agency determined the benefits of a booster outweigh the risks.
The FDA did not immediately provide the data and Offit said he was not aware of such data.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla cheered the news. “While new variants, including Omicron, emerge across the globe, we believe that the best way to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and any future variants is getting all eligible people fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster dose as recommended,” he said in a statement.
Senate Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Private Businesses
Epoch Times – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday narrowly voted to block President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the private sector.
In a 52-48 vote, mainly along party lines, the Senate voted to pass a resolution of disapproval (pdf) of the rule submitted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is overseen by the Department of Labor.
All 50 Republicans in the upper chamber joined with Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to challenge the measure under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to review and, if necessary, overturn new regulations put into place by federal offices such as OSHA.
Two Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, joined the Republicans in voting to overturn the vaccine mandate.
Addressing the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) laid out his reasoning for voting against the vaccine mandate.
“Biden’s vaccine mandate—like so many other of the left’s policies—is about power, controlling more aspects of Americans’ lives, & in so doing, eroding Americans’ personal autonomy,” Hagerty said.
It comes after a U.S. appeals court on Nov. 12 rejected a challenge by the Biden administration and reaffirmed its decision to put on hold OSHA sweeping vaccine mandate, which required that businesses with 100 employees or more ensure that workers either be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4, 2022, or be tested weekly and wear a mask.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans stated in an opinion last month that OSHA’s mandate is “staggeringly overbroad” and ordered it to “take no steps to implement or enforce the mandate until further court order.”
The court had previously issued a temporary halt to the mandate on Nov. 6, pending litigation.
The mandate was introduced in September by Biden, who told the nation that “our patience is wearing thin” with the millions of Americans who have chosen to not get a vaccine against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
To enact the mandates, Biden asked OSHA to declare an emergency temporary standard. In the past, such standards have been used to guard employees against dangerous chemicals or other similar toxins.
OSHA said in a statement to The Epoch Times at the time that the emergency temporary standard would “ensure [that a firm’s] workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work.”
In total, Biden’s mandate would extend to roughly 100 million Americans—nearly a third of all U.S. citizens.
In the federal appeal court’s decision on Nov. 12, it stated that the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate “raises serious constitutional concerns” and “likely exceeds the federal government’s authority.”
A Dozen Major US Cities Hit All-Time Murder Records With 3 Weeks Remaining in 2021
Epoch Times – At least 12 major U.S. cities have set annual murder records in 2021 even as there are still several weeks remaining in the year, data shows.
Philadelphia, one of the largest cities in the United States, saw 525 murders in 2021, according to police data. That’s higher than the previously set record of 500 murders in 1990.
With a population of nearly 1.579 million, the data suggests Philadelphia’s homicide rate is about 33 murders per 100,000 people—or more than four times higher than the U.S. homicide rate of 7.8 per 100,000 people in 2020.
“It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, said earlier this month, according to reports.
Other large cities that broke their previous homicide records in 2021 include Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; St. Paul, Minnesota; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Columbus, Ohio; Tuscon, Arizona; and Rochester, New York, according to an analysis of public news reports.
Indianapolis recorded at least 246 murders in 2021, Rochester has recorded at least 71 murders, Columbus has recorded at least 179, Baton Rouge recorded 137, Portland saw 79, Albuquerque has experienced 97, Tucson has 81, Louisville saw 175, St. Paul recorded 35, and Toledo saw 62 murders—all records.
Notably, Portland, Rochester, Lousiville, and St. Paul experienced numerous days of protests and riots starting in May of 2020 after the officer-involved death of George Floyd, which sparked nationwide unrest.
Protesters and rioters took to the streets in St. Paul—located near Minneapolis—following Floyd’s death at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Meanwhile, weeks of riots and protests erupted in Louisville following the death of Breonna Taylor, and in Portland, left-wing agitators partook in riots and protests for more than 100 consecutive days last year.
In Rochester, riots broke out following the officer-involved death of Daniel Prude, a black man who was later confirmed to be under the influence of the dissociative hallucinogenic drug PCP and was reportedly partially naked and smashing storefronts during cold and snowy weather on March 30, 2020.
“The community has to get fed up,” Capt. Frank Umbrino, of the Rochester Police Department, said during a recent news conference last month. “We’re extremely frustrated. It has to stop. I mean, it’s worse than a war zone around here lately.”
VIDEO: AG Moody, Sheriff Judd say they won’t let flash mob store robberies overrun Florida
Planet Lockdown Part 2 — The Financial Control System
Mercola – In 1998, trillions of dollars started to get sucked out of the U.S. government by the central banks. Our retirement funds have been looted and will within just a few years be nonexistent
Historically, U.S. intelligence agencies have primarily worked on behalf of the central bankers
Central bankers are now putting into place a system that will allow them to extract tax without representation
The central bankers, most of whom are technocrats, have created a breakaway society, a parallel society, in which they are above all law and control everything
To combat their control system, we must first be able to see it for what it is, and realize how it’s being used by us, to our own detriment
Planet Lockdown Part 2 — The Financial Control System
Mercola – In 1998, trillions of dollars started to get sucked out of the U.S. government by the central banks. Our retirement funds have been looted and will within just a few years be nonexistent
Historically, U.S. intelligence agencies have primarily worked on behalf of the central bankers
Central bankers are now putting into place a system that will allow them to extract tax without representation
The central bankers, most of whom are technocrats, have created a breakaway society, a parallel society, in which they are above all law and control everything
To combat their control system, we must first be able to see it for what it is, and realize how it’s being used by us, to our own detriment
CDC Director: Most US Omicron Infections Are ‘Mild’
Epoch Times – Most people infected with the Omicron coronavirus variant in the United States have experienced mild symptoms, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said on Dec 9.
“The disease is mild,” Walensky told The Associated Press, noting that symptoms include cough, congestion, and fatigue.
No Omicron-related deaths have been reported in the United States or around the world to date. One person in the United States has been hospitalized so far.
The Delta variant still accounts for most cases in the United States, officials say.
About 40 cases have been reported in the United States after it was first named by the World Health Organization (WHO) in late November. Most of the U.S. cases have been young adults, and about a third had recently traveled internationally, the CDC told AP.
“What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be. … We want to make sure we bolster everybody’s immunity. And that’s really what motivated the decision to expand our guidance,” Walensky said.
More than three-quarters of those patients had been vaccinated, and a third had boosters, Walensky said. Boosters take about two weeks to reach full effect, and some of the patients had received their most recent shot within that period, CDC officials said.
Some Omicron cases can become increasingly severe as days and weeks pass, she said, adding that the data is an early, first glimpse of U.S. Omicron infections. The earliest onset of symptoms of any of the first 40 or so cases was Nov. 15, according to the CDC.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 337 Omicron cases have been confirmed in the European Union, and about 1,458 cases have been reported worldwide as of Dec. 8.
Inflation Jumps to Highest Level In Nearly 40 Years
Epoch Times – Consumer prices accelerated in the year through November at their fastest pace in 39 years, new government data shows, marking the sixth straight month of inflation is running above 5 percent in annual terms and delivering a fresh sign that inflationary woes continue to bedevil the U.S. economy.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Dec. 10 that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which reflects inflation from the perspective of end consumers, rose 6.8 percent in the 12 months through November, a level not seen since May 1982, when it hit 6.9 percent.
The annual rise in the CPI gauge was in line with consensus forecasts, but the 0.8 percent monthly pace of inflation reported by BLS was somewhat of an upside surprise, with economists expecting a more moderate rise of 0.7 percent. Still, that represents a slight month-over-month slowdown after CPI inflation surged in October by 0.9 percent, more than doubling September’s rate of 0.4 percent.
The biggest contributors to November’s rate of inflation were gasoline, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles, the BLS report said, noting a 3.5 percent month-over-month rise in the energy index and a 6.1 percent rise in the gasoline index. On a 12 month basis, energy prices shot up 33.3 percent while food prices rose 6.1 percent, with the changes representing the largest over-the-year rises in both measures in at least 13 years.
“Further evidence of inflation broadening out, household furnishings, apparel, and the usual suspects of new and used vehicle prices all posted outsized increases in November,” Bankrate Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “Inflation is outpacing increases in household income and weighing heavily on consumer confidence, which is at a decade low. It is only a matter of time before it impacts consumer spending in a material way.”
Annual CPI inflation has now been running at over 5 percent for six straight months, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target. Last month’s annual CPI print came in at 6.2 percent, the highest level in 31 years, delivering a blow to the Fed’s “transitory” inflation narrative and prompting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to announce that it was high time to “retire” that word in describing the current inflationary environment.
Julian Assange One Step Closer to Extradition as US Wins Court Appeal in UK
Epoch Times – The U.S. government has won an appeal in a British court over the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, with the ruling representing a major setback in his fight to avoid being handed over to U.S. authorities to face espionage charges.
The High Court in London ruled on Dec. 10 that assurances given by U.S. authorities were sufficient to guarantee that Assange, who has been charged in the United States for his role in publishing classified military and diplomatic cables, would be treated humanely.
The British High Court directed a lower court judge to send the extradition request for review by Britain’s home secretary, who oversees law enforcement in the UK and will have the final say on whether to extradite Assange.
Friday’s ruling overturns a January decision by a British court that considered the “special administrative measures” that Assange would likely face in the United States as “oppressive” due to having a negative impact on Assange’s mental health. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition in January on grounds that Assange was likely to attempt suicide if held under harsh conditions.
No deaths linked to omicron anywhere in world
WND – The European Union’s counterpart to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an update Thursday that no deaths have been reported anywhere in the world linked to the omicron variant.
“All cases for which there is available information on severity were either asymptomatic or mild,” said the report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
The ECDC reported 1,780 confirmed cases of the omicron variant in 57 countries worldwide.
Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield on Thursday told “Fox & Friends” that omicron could become the dominant variant within weeks.
But he confirmed that while omicron and other new variants appear to be more contagious than previous ones, they also produces milder symptoms.
On Thursday, nevertheless, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new COVID-19 restrictions to “buy time” as the omicron variant emerges, including implementation of vaccine passes.
Activist Post – To those who are paying attention, the demonization and discrimination against the unvaccinated is eerily similar to extremely dark times throughout human history. These historical events are riddled with the suffering and death of millions of innocent people all because the media and government dehumanized a group of people and convinced the majority that they need to rid themselves of the “unclean.”
Unscientific vaccine mandates are laying waste to human rights across the planet. Lacking all logic and reason, even if you’ve had covid-19 and have superior immunity over someone who only took the jab, you are denied entry into public places and treated like a second-class citizen.
In Australia and Austria, the unvaccinated are fined and even arrested if they attempt to go out in public. Mainstream news outlets across the world continue to shame the unvaccinated, stoking fear and hatred against them over their personal medical choices.
President Biden even took to demonizing the unvaccinated, blaming them for the economic downturn, supply chain debacle, and claimed — without merit — that they are “costing jobs.”
Now, the state of Illinois is taking the segregation and discrimination against the unvaccinated one step further by attempting to strip them of their health insurance if they get sick from covid-19 — forcing them to pay for their medical treatment out of pocket.
“I think it’s time that we say: ‘You choose not to get vaccinated, then you’re also going to assume the risk that if you do catch COVID, and you get sick, the responsibility is on you,’” State Representative Jonathan Carroll told the Chicago Sun-Times this week.
The tyrant representative then went on to claim that many have frustrations between those who have “been following the science and … trying to do the right thing” and those who are “choosing not to get vaccinated, who are able to, for whatever they choose.”
Apparently, Carroll hasn’t been reading the latest headlines which show hospitalizations are spiking — among the fully vaccinated. In fact, the states with the highest vaccination rates are currently seeing the highest hospitalization rates.
In Vermont, which has the highest vaccination rate of any state in the country, new daily cases spiked sharply, far higher than southern states with lower jab rates. More than 72 percent of Vermonters have been fully vaccinated, compared with 59 percent nationally.
In neighboring New Hampshire, new daily cases shot up 84 percent in November (compared with a 7 percent jump over the same period nationwide), despite 63 percent of its population being fully inoculated.
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