It’s Bill of Rights Day. Do you know where your freedoms are?
From John Whitehead
It’s been over 200 years since James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, and what do we have to show for it?
Nothing good.
We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document, but the reality of life in the American police state tells a different story.
Here is what the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, really stands for today:
- First Amendment: You can be persecuted for criticizing the government; prosecuted for reporting on government wrongdoing; fined and jailed for exercising your religious beliefs; tear-gassed, beaten and arrested for protesting in public; and stymied in your efforts to hold the government accountable to the rule of law.
- Second Amendment: Owning a gun can get you put on a government watch list.
- Third Amendment: Militarized police now serve as a standing army on American soil.
- Fourth Amendment: Has been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of police powers, the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors, asset forfeiture schemes, and technological advances that allow the government to spy on Americans’ activities, movements and communications.
- The Fifth and Sixth Amendments: If the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights.
- Seventh Amendment: Juries ignorant of the Constitution provide little protection against injustice.
- Eighth Amendment: The government’s bar for “cruel and unusual” punishment slips lower every year.
- Ninth Amendment: The power to govern no longer flows upward from the people.
- Tenth Amendment: A system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, power elite.
Clearly, the government does whatever it wants, with no thought for our freedoms.
Virginia Hospital Allows COVID Patient to Get Ivermectin After Court Holds It in Contempt: Family
Epoch Times – After a judge found Virginia’s Fauquier Hospital in contempt of court in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a COVID-19 patient who was denied being prescribed Ivermectin, the hospital said Tuesday that it is complying with the court order.
Christopher Davies, the son of the patient, Kathleen Davies, told the Fauquier Times that two doses of Ivermectin—generally used to treat parasites—were given to the woman at 8:45 p.m. on Monday. The Epoch Times has contacted Fauquier Hospital for comment.
It came after Judge James. P. Fisher, of the 20th Judicial Court of Virginia, signed an order Monday finding Fauquier Hospital in contempt of court or “needlessly interposing requirements that stand in the way of the patient’s desired physician administering investigational drugs as part of the Health Care Decisions Act and the federal and state Right to Try Acts.”
Furthermore, “given the gravity at hand,” the hospital has to pay “$10,000 per day retroactive to the date of the court’s injunction order filing,” the judge ordered, meaning that each day the hospital does not prescribe Ivermectin to Davies, they will have to pay the fine “until the ordered relief has been accomplished.”
Her family had requested the hospital give Davies, who had been on a ventilator since Nov. 3, Ivermectin to treat her COVID-19 as a last resort to save her life. The Davies’ family doctor had prescribed Ivermectin to the woman, but Fauquier Hospital resisted administering the drug and cited medical, legal, and other concerns, the Fauquier Times reported.
The woman’s family took legal action on Dec. 6, filing a complaint to compel the hospital to treat her with the drug, according to the Fauquier Times.
LA District Postpones Vaccine Mandate as Thousands of Students Remain Unvaccinated
Epoch Times – The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday agreed not to require children to be vaccinated against COVID-19 until next fall, pushing back a Jan. 10 deadline as thousands of students remain unvaccinated.
The Los Angeles Unified School District vaccine mandate was postponed after board members raised concerns that students in California’s largest school district could be pushed into independent study, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The decision follows a proposal on Friday announced by Interim Los Angeles Superintendent Megan K. Reilly. She couched the move as an example of the vaccination program’s success, saying that nearly 87 percent of students aged 12 and older were in compliance with the policy. The extension would give others an opportunity to also become inoculated, she said.
“This is a major milestone, and there’s still more time to get vaccinated,” Reilly said on Friday.
The district will now continue to require weekly testing of all students through the month of January. After that it will only test students who don’t have proof of vaccination.
Some 28,000 students remain unvaccinated, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Video: ‘Pornographic’ book assigned to 14-year-old Texas students upsets parents
Yahoo News – A reading assignment at Eastlake High School is being described as ‘pornographic’ and has parents concerned, saying the sexually graphic nature of the book is completely inappropriate and should not be assigned to students, especially with out parental consent.
‘Hopeless’: Australia’s restaurants, cafes struggle to fill jobs
Al Jazeera – As residents in Australia’s second largest city flock to restaurants for dinner and drinks, Sarah Dennithorne is considering closing some of her pizzerias over the busy Christmas period.
Since Melbourne exited one of the world’s longest lockdowns in October, Dennithorne, who manages several branches of Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza, has struggled to fill vacancies in the kitchen and front of house.
Find Out Which States Best, Worst for Honest Elections
Daily Signal – Georgia ranks at the top among states for the strongest laws in the nation to guarantee honest elections, while Hawaii ranks at the bottom, according to a new Election Integrity Scorecard from The Heritage Foundation.
Heritage’s scorecard, announced Tuesday, measures all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on a dozen election-related categories.
Categories in which scores may reach between 20 and 30 points are voter ID requirements, maintaining accurate voter registration lists, and rules governing absentee ballots.
A perfect overall score in providing for honest elections would be 100, meaning a top score in all 12 categories. Georgia had a total score of 83, while Hawaii’s score was 26.
Military Officials: Terrorism On The Rise
Stand for America – Bad news: Terrorists are gaining power. Worse news: Because of Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, it’ll be much more difficult to stop them.
One of America’s top generals just announced that the Pentagon’s ability to track terrorists in Afghanistan dropped from about 99% to 1% after Biden pulled our troops out in August. What should we expect now? An ever-strengthening Al Qaeda and a “resurgent ISIS.” Reminder: Al Qaeda terrorists launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan because the Taliban harbored them. Now, Taliban radicals are back in charge, wreaking havoc and releasing terrorists—including the one who killed 13 Americans—from Afghan prisons.
According to the Pentagon, it’ll be “very hard” to ensure Al Qaeda isn’t staging another deadly attack on our nation from Afghanistan. It’s time for Biden to show the world America means business—before his foreign policy failures embolden more terrorists. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan
Longstanding Anti‐Price Gouging Statutes Worsen Shortages
CATO Institute – Anti‐price gouging laws prolonged shortages of certain goods that were in high demand early in the pandemic. Some analysis suggests these laws even worsened public health outcomes, because ongoing shortages of, say, hand sanitizer and toilet paper, led to consumers in states with these regulations searching for them more at physical retailers, actually increasing transmission of the virus.
But there’s an interesting question that’s often underexplored in regard to these laws: how does the expectation that these price controls will be triggered shape people’s beliefs about products’ availability and so customer search behavior?
That’s the topic of another fascinating new paper by economists Rik Chakraborti and Gavin Roberts. Using data for online searches for hand sanitizer and toilet paper across states, they harness the variation in when laws were introduced to research the question: is consumer search behaviour different in states with new anti‐price gouging legislation introduced during the pandemic from states with pre‐existing anti‐price gouging laws?
Economic theory would suggest that any anti‐price gouging legislation, whenever introduced, would lead to more consumer search for goods, due to the induced shortages. And, sure enough, after controlling for the effects of lockdowns, rising infections, and declines in travel which plagued the early stages of the pandemic, consumers in states with anti‐price gouging laws were significantly more likely to search online for toilet paper and hand sanitizer than those in states without such laws.
More searching presumably reflects higher levels of hoarding and panic‐buying creating the shortages—after all, having to resort to online shopping for goods that are commonly bought in stores means the local grocery or drug store has probably been emptied already.
But theory would also suggest that customers in states with past experience of anti‐price gouging laws might search even more intensely, because people come to expect shortages again when crises hit. In other words, those who have experienced shortages before might be more likely to hoard and panic buy this time around, leading to even higher online search than in situations where new laws are introduced for the first time.
Trump Hints at 2024 Run, Says He Likes DeSantis ‘A Lot’
Epoch Times – Former President Donald Trump again hinted at a 2024 presidential run during his “History Tour” with Bill O’Reilly in Orlando on Sunday.
“We won the first time, and the second time we won by even more. And it looks like we might have to think about very strongly a third time,” Trump told O’Reilly before a crowd in the Amway Center.
Orlando is the second stop of Trump’s “History Tour” with the former Fox News anchor. Trump started the tour Saturday in Sunrise, Florida, and will have two more stops in Texas—one in Houston on Dec. 18 and one in Dallas on Dec. 19.
When asked by O’Reilly if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be a “possible No. 2,” Trump didn’t address the question directly.
“First of all, I think that people are going to be very happy with what I do,” Trump said.
As the question persisted, Trump said, “he’s certainly somebody that I like a lot. I can tell you that.”
DeSantis has become popular among GOP voters because of his firm stances against the Biden administration’s lockdown, COVID-19 vaccine mandate, immigration policy, and others.
During the first stop at Sunrise, Florida, Trump said DeSantis “would be good” for a potential running mate. “I think Mike [Pence] has been very hurt by what took place with respect to January 6. I think he’s been mortally wounded, frankly,” Business Insider reported.
Washington, DC, sues Proud Boys, Oath Keepers over Jan. 6
ABC – The District of Columbia has filed a civil lawsuit seeking harsh financial penalties against far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers over their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court, also names dozens of the groups’ senior members, many of whom already face criminal charges for taking part in the violent attack on the Capitol building while Congress was meeting to certify the 2020 election results.
Karl Racine, Washington’s attorney general, said the lawsuit seeks compensation for damages to the District of Columbia and intends to inflict maximum financial damage on the groups responsible.
“Out intent is to hold these violent mobsters and violent hate groups accountable and to get every penny of damage we can,” Racine said. “If it so happens that we bankrupt them, then that’s a good day.”
‘Internet’s on Fire Right Now’: Millions of Devices at Risk Over New Software Vulnerability
Epoch Times – A newly discovered flaw in a common piece of open-source software is prompting researchers and companies to update their systems in a bid to prevent hacks and ransomware attacks.
The vulnerability, known as CVE-2021-44228, was disclosed on Dec. 9, which allows remote access to servers and code execution, some experts have said. Meanwhile, Log4j is used in a large number of enterprise systems, raising concerns that it may be easily exploited.
Since the vulnerability, which some dubbed “Log4Shell,” so is widespread and is likely present in highly-trafficked websites and apps, users may also see their favorite websites and apps be impacted.
Cybersecurity firms Mandiant and Crowdstrike said that hacking groups are trying to breach systems, and Mandiant described to Reuters that they are “Chinese government actors,” in reference to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“Given that Log4j has been a ubiquitous logging solution for Enterprise Java development for decades, Log4j has the potential to become a vulnerability that will persist within Industrial Control Systems (ICS) environments for years to come,” according to a blog post by cybersecurity researchers at Dragos.
A cybercriminal can exploit the flaw by sending a malicious code string that will get logged by the Log4j version, allowing the attacker to load an arbitrary Java code to a server. The vulnerability could potentially allow them to take control of the server.
Federal cybersecurity officials also reportedly expressed alarm over the vulnerability in recent days.
“This vulnerability is one of the most serious that I’ve seen in my entire career, if not the most serious,” Jen Easterly, the head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on a phone call. The Epoch Times has contacted CISA for comment.
Easterly warned that CISA can “expect the vulnerability to be widely exploited by sophisticated actors and we have limited time to take necessary steps in order to reduce the likelihood of damaging incidents.”
The proverbial canary in the coal mine was when researchers noted that Minecraft’s servers could be compromised via the vulnerability. Microsoft last week posted instructions for how players could update the game’s Java version.
“This exploit affects many services—including Minecraft Java Edition,” said Microsoft. “This vulnerability poses a potential risk of your computer being compromised.”
Parent Says Daughter Was ‘Coached’ on LGBTQ Identity at California School
Epoch Times – Parents outraged over school staff who allegedly disguised the names of Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs at a California middle school are planning to voice their concerns at a school board meeting this week in Salinas.
Jessica Konen has alleged that school staff indoctrinated her then 12-year-old daughter in an LGBTQ club disguised as an “Equality Club.” She told The Epoch Times she plans to speak at the Dec. 15 meeting at Spreckels Union School District (SUSD) during public comments.
Two teachers at Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas were recorded coaching other teachers to conceal the nature of LGTBQ clubs from parents by at a sold-out California Teachers Association conference held in Palm Springs, California, from Oct. 29 to Oct. 31. The CTA event was billed as the “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities.
The teachers led a workshop called “How we run a ‘GSA’ in Conservative Communities,” and described the obstacles that they face as activist teachers to conceal the activities of GSA clubs from parents.
SUSD officials have not responded directly to inquiries but SUSD did post an alert on its website notifying the community that school staff involved in the alleged incident have been suspended pending an independent third-party investigation.
Konen claims that one of the teachers coaxed her daughter to join a lunch-hour “Equality Club” and began affirming her daughter as transgender.
Near the end of sixth grade, Konen’s daughter told her she might be bisexual, and by the middle of the seventh grade, Konen was called to the school for a meeting with her daughter, a teacher, and the school principal.
Amtrak Suspends COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Employees: Chief Executive
Epoch Times – Passenger railroad operator Amtrak said Tuesday it will suspend its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees and no longer expects service disruptions in January.
Amtrak Chief Executive Bill Flynn said in a memo obtained by The Epoch Times that employees who aren’t vaccinated can get tested instead. Fewer than 500 Amtrak workers are unvaccinated, he said.
Informing Amtrak’s decision was a recent federal court order that “halted the enforcement of the executive order for federal contractors” which caused the firm to reevaluate its policy toward vaccine mandates, Flynn wrote.
It means Amtrak will revert back to its original vaccine mandate that it announced in August, which allows for regular testing of unvaccinated workers, Flynn said. That will allow “for testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated,” the memo said.
The memo added that Amtrak employees “required to submit testing and fail to do so will be placed on an unpaid leave of absence initially.”
Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation that receives some federal dollars, was slated to terminate the employment of about 500 unvaccinated workers next month and anticipated service cuts. Amtrak president Stephen Gardner testified during a House hearing last week that he expected cuts because the railroad operator didn’t have enough staff to operate all its trains.
But with Tuesday’s decision, the service cuts can be averted, Flynn said.
Google Tells Employees to Get Vaccinated or Be Fired
Breitbart – The search engine empire Google has issued a vaccine mandate to its employees, telling them to get both shots by January 18 or else face a series of disciplinary actions that could eventually result in their termination.
In a staff memo obtained by CNBC, Google gave employees until December 3 to share their vaccination status with the company or apply for a medical/religious exemption. After declarations were made, the company said it would then contact the people who either did not register, were unvaccinated, or had their exemptions rejected.
“The document said employees who haven’t complied with the vaccination rules by the Jan. 18 deadline will be placed on ‘paid administrative leave’ for 30 days,” reported CNBC. “After that, the company will put them on ‘unpaid personal leave’ for up to six months, followed by termination.”
Google will soon be requiring its workers to enter its offices three days a week and will no longer permit the stay-at-home work culture that has become so dominant during the age of coronavirus.
Kroger Ending COVID-19 Sick Leave Benefits for Unvaccinated Workers, Adding Health Surcharge
Epoch Times – Kroger is ending certain benefits for unvaccinated workers in order to compel its workforce to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Unvaccinated workers will no longer be eligible to receive up to two weeks of paid emergency sick leave if they get sick with COVID-19 variants.
Kroger, the country’s largest grocery chain, employs almost 500,000 employees who interact with as many as 9 million customers daily across the nation.
“We are modifying policies to encourage safe behaviors including vaccination, which we continue to incentivize with a $100 payment for all fully vaccinated associates,” said Kristal Howard, director of Corporate Communications and Media Relations for Kroger in an email to The Epoch Times.
Only unvaccinated managers and other non-union employees on the company health plan will face the $50 monthly surcharge.
A “$50 monthly surcharge will be implemented on Jan. 1, 2022 and only apply to salaried associates who are unvaccinated and enrolled in a company healthcare plan,” not to hourly associates or unionized workers, said Howard.
“While COVID-19 leave will no longer be available to unvaccinated associates, we continue to offer a variety of forms of leave for associates who may contract the virus, including earned PTO and the ability to apply for unpaid leave.”
Only fully vaccinated workers who get a COVID variant will still get special sick leave.
Howard said that the previous emergency leave policy was put into place last year when vaccines were unavailable.
Panic Mongers Plan to Destroy Lives With Variant Virus
Mercola – Despite a scary-sounding name, the Omicron variant appears to be all hype and no real threat. Primary symptoms of infection with this SARS-CoV-2 strain is a couple of days of fatigue, headache, body aches, scratchy throat and intermittent cough South Africa reports that no patients so far have required oxygen or even hospitalization for their symptoms. All have been very mild. The first four cases in Botswana were all fully vaccinated against COVID-19 Africa’s low vaccination rate is irrationally being blamed for the emergence of Omicron, even though the continent has extremely low levels of spread compared to the U.S., Canada and Europe A plane with 600 passengers was diverted for testing when the news about Omicron broke; 10% of the passengers were found to have COVID, 13 of the 61 positive passengers had Omicron, while the rest had Delta or some previous strain. So, clearly, vaccine passports are not preventing spread. Fully “vaccinated” people are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaccinated Australia, a test ground for this totalitarian takeover, is quietly trying to pass legislation to expand its digital identity system
Mercola – The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) and the Natural Products Association (NPA) have filed separate citizen petitions with the FDA requesting that the agency reverse their position on NAC; the agency is now asking for more information on the 58-year-old supplement According to some legal experts, the actions taken by the FDA are not legal under U.S. code Title 21. The FDA has used the exclusion provision three other times, all of which financially benefited the pharmaceutical industry While past actions may have opened the door to the most recent attack against NAC, it is not difficult to understand why the FDA chooses now to target NAC, when it has demonstrated effective action against COVID-19 Evidence suggests those with a glutathione deficiency have worse outcomes with COVID19. NAC is a precursor to glutathione and may help lower the risk of severe disease NAC can be part of your early at-home treatment that is crucial to lowering the severity of the illness and reducing the risk of long-haul symptoms
14 Patents in Every Fake Bite of Impossible Burger
Mercola – Impossible Foods, which made headlines for its meatless burgers that “bleed” like real meat, holds 14 patents, with at least 100 more pending Impossible Foods should be called “Impossible Patents,” according to Seth Itzkan of Soil4Climate, who suggests fake meat products are destroying the environment by perpetuating a harmful reliance on genetically engineered grains while accelerating soil loss and detracting from regenerative agriculture Impossible Foods’ products are heavily processed and produced in laboratories — not grown in or found in nature Impossible Foods has even taken aim at regenerative farming practices, which are promoting optimal nutrition and health while at the same time helping to prevent pollution and restore damaged ecosystems Impossible Foods’ numerous patents reveal that their products are driven by profits, and perhaps the ultimate goal is to replace real meat altogether with a highly lucrative patented product
Biden can’t stop saying 13-letter word that is nowhere to be found in English language
WND – President Joe Biden isn’t exactly known for his eloquence these days, but I’d always attributed his occasional (OK, concerningly frequent) slips of the tongue to his age (he’s 79) and, possibly, cognitive decline.
I have no theories, however, about his frequent use of a word that is not in the English language.
The word is “expodentially.” This is how Biden seemingly pronounces the word “exponentially.”
And no, I’m not talking about once or twice when he had a cold or a touch of hay fever and his “N” sounded slightly like a “D.”
I’m talking about dozens of instances in which he very deliberately and clearly said “expodentially,” which is neither how you pronounce “exponentially” nor a word in its own right.
The conspicuous overuse of this non-word was observed by members of the Republican Party’s media team, as the official @GOP Twitter account shared a video that included numerous examples, back to back, of Biden employing this odd butchering of the English language.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Goes on Offense Against Critical Race Theory, Proposes the Stop WOKE Act
Breitbart – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday announced what his office branded a “first of its kind in the nation” legislation to combat both woke corporations and Marxist ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools and places of employment across the Sunshine State.
In the past, Gov. DeSantis has targeted Critical Race Theory, vowing to take action against the divisive Marxist ideology, which urges children to view everything through the lens of race.
“It’s also based on false history when they try to look back and denigrate the Founding Fathers, denigrate the American Revolution, doing all these different things that even very liberal historians say is not supported by the facts,” the governor said during a press conference in Pensacola in May, adding that civics should be a priority and must be “taught accurately.”
“It needs to be taught in a fact-based way. Not an ideological-based way, and if we have to play whack-a-mole all over this state, stopping this Critical Race Theory, we will do it,” he vowed.
In June, the Florida Department of Education approved a proposal effectively banning Critical Race Theory and content inspired by the divisive ideology from being taught in schools. The rule specifically prohibits educators from indoctrinating or persuading students “to a particular point of view.”
However, DeSantis does not believe that the action should end there, as CRT is also embraced in “corporate boardrooms and employee trainings at some of America’s most powerful corporations,” which assert that the U.S. is a country dominated by white supremacy.
Kraft will pay you $20 not to make cheesecake for Christmas
CNN – Kraft is using its cream cheese shortage as a marketing opportunity.
For just a few days this holiday season, a limited number of people will be able to spend $20 on dessert and charge it to Kraft, owner of Philadelphia Cream Cheese. The premise: People who can’t bake cheesecakes because they can’t find cream cheese can get another baked good on Kraft’s dime.
Here’s how it works: People interested in the offer can visit a special website set up by Kraft. On December 17 and 18, up to 18,000 of them will be able to nab the right to get reimbursement for a holiday treat. They’ll be able to submit receipts to the company a few weeks later.
For Kraft, the campaign is a way to soften the blow of empty cream cheese shelves — and keep customers thinking about Philadelphia cream cheese, without souring on the brand.
Cream cheese is the latest hard-to-come-by grocery item in a year of shortages. A spike in cream cheese demand during the pandemic has made it difficult to keep shelves stocked, Kraft said.
Democrat Senator Speaks At Awards Ceremony For The Communist Party (VIDEO)
Gateway Pundit – In recent years, Democrats have struggled with the label of socialism. Many of them don’t want to be branded as socialists, but at the same time, they can’t afford to alienate their far left base.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut has just raised the stakes, however. He not only attended an awards ceremony hosted by the Communist party, he spoke at it.
Good luck shedding that socialist label, now.
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