RT – Paris has said it will ban UK tourists from entering France in an attempt to slow the spread of the more contagious Omicron variant on Covid-19, which is already rampant in Britain.
Speaking on Thursday, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said applying tougher rules on people traveling from the UK would give France more time to prepare for the forthcoming wave of infections.
Bank warns Bitcoin value could drop to zero
RT – A senior official at the Bank of England has questioned the value of Bitcoin, which soared to $68,000 last month, citing the currency’s volatility and warning that digital assets could theoretically or practically drop to zero.
According to Deputy Governor Sir Jon Cunliffe, fast-growing digital assets could pose a danger to the established financial system.
In an interview with the BBC, Cunliffe said that at present around 0.1% of British households’ wealth was held in cryptocurrencies. And, if their value was to fall sharply, it could have a knock-on effect.
Cryptocurrencies are “growing very fast,” he explained, and are being integrated into the financial system; a significant change in price could affect other markets and established financial players.
“It’s not there yet, but it takes time to design standards and regulations,” Cunliffe added.
Not everyone shares Cunliffe’s grim outlook. After reaching peak price in November, Bitcoin dropped back below $46,000 early this month. However, many experts believe the asset is on its way to passing the $100,000 mark. Bloomberg predicted earlier this year that Bitcoin could rise as high as $400,000 by the end of 2021.
RT – The Central Bank of Russia wants to ban cryptocurrencies in the country, Reuters has reported, citing sources close to the regulator.
The regulator reportedly sees the rise in the number of crypto transactions as a risk to the country’s financial stability.
Digital assets have legal status in Russia but they cannot be used as a means of payment, as the government believes they could be used in money laundering or to finance terrorism.
According to Reuters, the central bank is now discussing a possible ban with market players and experts. If approved, the measure could apply to new purchases of crypto assets but not to existing portfolios.
The current position of the Central Bank of Russia is reportedly a “complete rejection” of all cryptocurrencies.
No Booster? Students may be Barred from Registration, Free Movement on Campus
Activist Post – George Washington University has threatened to restrict registration access for students who do not receive a booster shot by March 15.
The university also announced that failure to get a COVID booster may affect facility access permissions set on student IDs.
George Washington University has become the latest school to require a booster shot for returning students. However, this new mandate is now affecting whether or not students will be eligible to register for classes.
In a December 13 announcement, the university announced that students must receive a booster shot before February 1, 2022 or be subjected to weekly testing.
Students who do not provide proof of vaccination by March 15, 2022 will not be eligible to enroll in summer or fall classes.
Louisiana Governor to Add COVID-19 Vaccine to List of Required School Immunizations
Epoch Times – Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed he is moving forward with adding COVID-19 vaccines to the required list of school immunizations, despite the state’s House Health and Welfare Committee voting to reject the proposal at a hearing last week.
In a letter (pdf) to the House Committee on Health and Welfare Chairman Larry Bagley on Dec. 14, the governor said he disapproved of the committee’s rejection, and he plans to allow the rule to go into effect because it will “save lives” and help the state emerge from the pandemic.
Under the proposed amendment, SARS-CoV-2 shots would be added to the list of required vaccinations for school entry. Vaccinations and all potential boosters would also be required for school attendance. The rule will go into effect beginning with the 2022–23 school year.
The requirement would only apply to age groups for whom the FDA has given full approval of the vaccine, which is currently ages 16 and up, unless expanded.
Parents will still be able to exempt their children from being vaccinated against COVID-19 by claiming religious, medical, or philosophical reasons via a written dissent. Claims for exemptions due to medical reasons should be done via submission of a written statement from a physician stating that such vaccination is contraindicated for medical reasons.
“I understand that any issue around COVID-19, especially those that involve our children, can be divisive, I ask that you and your colleagues work with me to get more people in Louisiana vaccinated,” Edwards wrote to the committee chair.
“It is worth noting that while many of the diseases on the public health immunization schedule were once both rampant and deadly, they are no longer serious risks for school age children in Louisiana. This is true because almost everyone was vaccinated against these diseases, many as a condition for attending elementary school,” Edwards wrote.
“One can only imagine where we would be as a state if the same overheated rhetoric from last week’s meeting was applied to Polio or Measles. The development of the COVID-19 vaccines in time to help us put this pandemic behind us also requires us to do everything we can to add COVID-19 to the list of diseases that no longer pose a serious threat,” Edwards said.
The governor also pointed to official figures stating that over 770,000 people in Louisiana have tested positive for coronavirus, while almost 15,000 have died from the disease in the last 22 months, 19 of which were under the age of 18.
“By contrast, there have only been 12 significant adverse events related to vaccine administration in Louisiana with zero deaths,” he wrote. “By any measure, the COVID-19 vaccines have been a historic success.”
The House Health and Welfare Committee, led by Bagley, voted 13—2 last week to reject the proposal.
“There was absolutely no way we were going to let this happen,” Bagley wrote on Facebook at the time.
Bagley told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser he wasn’t surprised that Edwards has decided to move forward with the COVID-19 vaccine requirement, but noted that, “I am disappointed that the governor vetoed what was clearly the bipartisan will of our committee, which is charged with oversight of this issue.”
“I’ve taken the vaccine myself, but I don’t believe it should be mandated,” Bagley said. “This should be the parent’s decision.”
Woke Mob Comes for Professor Who Opposes Left-Wing Social Values
Daily Caller – If you don’t agree with the politically correct narrative, you must be destroyed.
That’s the attitude elite Western institutions increasingly take with anyone who disagrees with the ever-moving and increasingly radical cultural left. If you have the gall to still be operating within those institutions, you are treated with an even higher level of hate.
Boise State University professor Scott Yenor is witnessing this firsthand.
Yenor, a tenured professor of political science, stirred up an angry hive of discontent for a speech he made at a National Conservatism conference in late October.
In the speech, he denounced the feminist ideology that treats boys and girls as if they are not only the same, but should want and value the same things as each other. He said that the modern feminist ethos of “careerism” without connection to family and religion leaves them finding meaning in politics and what he called the “global project.”
He also said that our culture now devalues and expects little out of men.
These comments spurred countless media articles, denunciations, and protests on the Boise State campus.
The attacks came with little actual engagement with Yenor’s view. We are simply to assume that he’s wrong and that his words and ideas are unacceptable.
This isn’t the first time Yenor has provoked a cancel mob at Boise State.
In 2017, Yenor wrote an article for The Daily Signal in which he wrote that transgender activists are undermining parental rights and traditional family values.
Yenor wrote at the time:
Transgender rights activists are seeking to abridge parental rights by elevating the independent choices of young children. Respecting the sexual and gender “choices” of ever-younger children erodes parental rights and compromises the integrity of the family as an independent unit.
The reaction to Yenor’s comments then was also extreme, to say the least. Students, staff members, and outside activists sprung into action to get him fired, typically calling his words “hate speech.”
You can read his article here and decide for yourself if this constitutes hate speech.
Elementary School Libraries Offer Gender Identity Book for Kids, Virginia School System Confirms
Daily Signal – Loudoun County Public Schools keeps four copies of an ideological book on gender identity for little children in its elementary school libraries, the Virginia school system confirmed Wednesday to The Daily Signal.
Written by “One Bad Mother” podcaster Theresa Thorn, the book “It Feels So Good to Be Yourself” describes the terms “sex assigned at birth,” “intersex,” “gender identity,” “gender expression,” “cisgender,” “transgender,” and “non-binary” to readers.
An Amazon description of the book says it is intended for children ages 4 to 8.
“It is my wish that this book helps children to better understand themselves and others,” writes Thorn in an author’s note. “This book is for trans kids, cis kids, non-binary kids, gender-fluid kids, gender-expansive kids, questioning kids, and all kids, everywhere.”
The book’s royalties go to the LGBTQ organization Gender Spectrum, according to Thorn’s husband, and it cites multiple radically liberal organizations as “helpful resources” for young readers, including the Human Rights Campaign, the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, and GLAAD, originally the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Wayde Byard, public information officer for Loudoun County Public Schools, confirmed Wednesday to The Daily Signal that the school system has four copies of “It Feels So Good to Be Yourself” in elementary school libraries.
The book is an “optional reading selection,” Byard said.
Loudoun is about 45 miles west of Washington and is one of the nation’s most affluent jurisdictions and the fourth most populous county in Virginia. The county’s school system has drawn national attention because of its radically progressive policies as well as student assaults on school premises that officials covered up.
Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, an organization fighting radical content in schools, slammed the public school system in a statement to The Daily Signal.
“This book is not about treating people with kindness, it is about encouraging young children to question their gender before they are able to read proficiently, multiply and divide, and know the state capitals,” said Prior.
“Further, this book, and others like it, promotes an ideology that many parents would find objectionable to be pushing on their children in public schools, especially on children that are so young.”
Illinois Parents Fight to Ban Sexually Explicit Book From Schools
Epoch Times – Terry Newsome, a father of two high school freshmen in a Democratic-leaning Chicago suburb, was never into local school board meetings. That was until five months ago.
Newsome was busy working as an associate vice president at a global information services provider. He was also fighting two cancers, one being stage-four prostate cancer.
After he survived that one, his Italian Mom, a devout Catholic, said to him, “Well, son, you must be kept on this earth for something.”
About seven months ago, his then 8th grader son came home from school and told Newsome, “Dad, my teacher just told us there is no American dream. It is not there for everybody, so it is not real.”
Newsome, a descendant of European immigrants who had lived the American dream, was shocked to hear that.
He called the principal, and he reached out to parents, all of which opened his eyes to what is going on at public schools.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I already heard what happened in 8th grade, but it is going to get worse in high school.’”
In July, Newsome attended his first school board meeting at Downers Grove’s Community High School (District 99).
He voiced his opinions on hot issues, such as critical race theory and mask mandates. Soon, he emerged as an unofficial spokesperson for a concerned group of mostly mothers.
“The Moms are so happy to have an aggressive, type-A-personality father to join them. They had mostly fought this battle alone, against the giant system of public schools,” Newsome told The Epoch Times.
Weeks ago, Newsome and his group found themselves in a nationwide fight to ban a comic book, with graphic sex scenes, from schools.
CATO – 81% of Republicans think Facebook and Twitter’s Trump ban violated the First Amendment, strong liberals are three times more likely than conservatives to report users on social media, 58% of Americans support a First Amendment content moderation standard
A new Cato Institute/YouGov national survey of 2,000 Americans finds that three‐fourths of Americans don’t trust social media companies to make fair content moderation decisions. The survey, conducted in collaboration with YouGov, finds that nearly two‐thirds (60%) would prefer social media companies provide users with greater choice and control over the content they see in their newsfeeds rather than do more to reduce all users’ exposure to offensive content or misinformation (40%). It also finds that a majority (63%) believe social media companies have too much influence over the outcome of national elections.
Read the full survey report and results here.
Court Lets Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers Take Effect in Some States
Epoch Times – A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed a nationwide ban on President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for some 17 million health care workers.
The emergency rule will take effect in 26 states due to the ruling from a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Two federal judges last month blocked the mandate. The first ruling applied to just 10 states; the second expanded the preliminary injunction across the nation.
But the appeals court said it found “little justification” for the second move in the opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee, on Nov. 30.
Doughty’s order lacked a “constitutional uniformity principle” seen in previous cases like Texas v. United States or concerns outlined in that case and others “that patchwork rulings would undermine an injunction limited to certain jurisdictions,” they said in a 6-page opinion.
The panel that put forth the ruling consisted of Judges Leslie Southwich, a George W. Bush nominee; James Graves Jr., an Obama nominee; and Gregg Costa, another Obama nominee.
The mandate, issued last month by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), covers roughly 17 million workers. It requires facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding to force workers to get vaccinated. It has no testing opt-out.
The deadline for meeting the mandate is Jan. 4, 2022.
The ruling means the mandate is back in effect in 26 states.
Scientific Journal Censorship With Dr. Malone
Mercola – Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology, shares scientific censorship that’s running rampant in medical journals
Data on repurposing existing drugs to treat COVID-19 is being blocked, rejected and buried
Scientific journals depend on revenue from selling journal reprints to pharmaceutical companies — major financial motivation to print only research that’s favorable to the pharmaceutical industry
Rampant lawlessness, in which rules and regulations about bioethics are being completely disregarded, has taken over
We’re experiencing a threat of global slavery of the entire population to financial interests that can be traced back to BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, the two largest asset management firms in the world
Heart Inflammation Risk Higher From Moderna Vaccine Than COVID-19 for Those Under 40: Study
Epoch Times – The risk of developing a form of heart inflammation is higher for people younger than 40 after receiving Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine than it is from contracting COVID-19, according to a new study.
Researchers found 15 excess cases per 1 million people who received a second dose of the vaccine compared to 10 extra cases of myocarditis following a positive COVID-19 test. Moderna’s vaccine is typically taken in a two-dose regimen.
The risk of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, was much higher following the second dose of the Moderna vaccine, but there were still eight excess cases per 1 million people following the first dose as well.
“Time to abandon the belief that COVID-19 myocarditis risk is always higher than mRNA vaccine myocarditis risk. For some individuals, myocarditis risks of the vaccine(s) are higher than those of the disease,” Euzebiusz Jamrozik, an infectious disease expert who works at the University of Oxford, wrote on Twitter.
The elevated risk stood out against what researchers found for the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines. People were found to be more at risk of contracting myocarditis from COVID-19 than from either of those vaccines, regardless of age.
“This population-based study quantifies for the first time the risk of several rare cardiac adverse events associated with three COVID-19 vaccines as well as SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 in adults was associated with a small increase in the risk of myocarditis within a week of receiving the first dose of both adenovirus and mRNA vaccines, and after the second dose of both mRNA vaccines. By contrast, SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantial increase in the risk of hospitalization or death from myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmia,” the researchers wrote.
SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.
The study was published in Nature and was carried out by professors from multiple colleges, including the University of Oxford, which helped develop the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Shocking Study Out of Columbia University Suggests Deaths Post COVID Jab Could Be 400,000
Free Thought Project – A study, which has yet to be fully published conducted by Dr. Spiro P. Pantazatos, an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (Psychiatry) at Columbia University and Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, analyzes the publicly available data on vaccine adverse reactions and comes to a startling conclusion. The authors found that deaths of people dying from the vaccination could total in the hundreds of thousands.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data showing a total of 946,463 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and Dec. 3, 2021, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
This most recent dats included a total of 19,886 reports of deaths and 150,946 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period. While these numbers are certainly shocking and cause for concern and investigation, Dr. Pantazatos and his colleague, Herve Seligmann paint a far more bleak picture.
Before going any further, as not to set off the “fact checkers” it is important to point out that just because data is submitted to the CDC through VAERS, this does not in anyway mean that these reactions are related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
In fact, immediately after reporting these historically and utterly shocking numbers, the CDC reassures us that “a review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.”
“One of the main limitations of VAERS data is that it cannot determine if the vaccine caused the reported adverse event,” reads the CDC’s website. “This limitation has caused confusion in the publicly available data from VAERS WONDER, specifically regarding the number of reported deaths. There have been instances where people have misinterpreted reports of deaths following vaccination as deaths caused by the vaccines; that is not accurate.”
Despite this disclaimer on the CDC’s website, however, the researchers in the study used other data outside of VAERS, along with VAERS data, pointing out that we need better numbers and that “accurate estimates of COVID vaccine-induced severe adverse event and death rates are critical for risk-benefit ratio analyses of vaccination and boosters against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in different age groups.”
Researchers analyzed the publicly available data from Europe, Israel, and the US and they claim to have found a correlation within five weeks of vaccination and death. In the 6 weeks post-vaccination, researchers found a negative correlation with mortality. However, according to the study, “vaccination predicted all-cause mortality 0-5 weeks post-injection in almost all age groups and with an age-related temporal pattern consistent with the US vaccine rollout.”
Pandemic Lockdowns Fueled Massive Rise in Gaming and Addiction, Experts Say
Epoch Times – During the pandemic, nationwide stay-at-home orders handed gaming companies a golden opportunity.
Under restrictive nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns, for many people, gaming was one of the few active recreations, social activities, and creative outlets available.
From 2020 to 2021, revenue for gaming companies skyrocketed.
Video game maker Activision Blizzard saw revenues on the first-person shooter game Call of Duty rise by 72 percent, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORG) World of Warcraft by 7 percent, and apps by its King subsidiary rise by 22 percent.
Chinese gaming company Tencent saw its total revenue rise by 25 percent in the same time frame. It owns first-person shooters Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege, online battle game League of Legends, multiplayer base builder app Clash of Clans, battle royale game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and more games.
In dollar terms, Activision Blizzard’s revenue rose to $2.275 billion from $1.79 billion, and Tencent’s revenue rose to $20.6 billion from $15.252 billion.
Activision Blizzard and Tencent didn’t respond to requests for comment.
By contrast, the movie industry that traditionally competes with video games has tanked.
AMC Entertainment Holdings had revenue of $941.5 million in 2020’s first quarter and $692 million in revenue in 2021’s first quarter. Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. saw its revenue drop by about $140 million in the same period.
But this massive profit from games isn’t just a case of free-market business as usual, some experts say.
Gaming companies often use manipulative methods similar to gambling, and the number of people addicted to video games has risen as well.
Nationwide gaming addiction support group Online Gamers Anonymous has seen its number of monthly visitors more than quadruple. Gaming addiction recovery centers in Austin, Texas, and Chicago have also seen the number of people seeking addiction help rise dramatically.
Much of gaming’s revenue comes from things that gamers hate the most, features experts say are intentionally designed to mimic gambling, take advantage of human impatience, and capture the money of gamers in traps engineered from cutting-edge psychology.
“It’s like selling your soul to the dark side,” addiction expert Dr. Nicholas Kardaras said of psychologists who work for gaming companies. “You’re going to use your talents to help addict people.”
As gaming’s revenues have increased, companies have “weaponized” psychology to wring money out of the more than 244 million gamers in the United States, he said.
Virginia Hospital Provides Update After Court Holds It in Contempt
Epoch Times – A spokesperson for Virginia’s Fauquier Hospital told The Epoch Times on Wednesday that it “would like to correct the misinformation regarding the family who disagreed with the clinical course of treatment recommended by our physicians for their family member.”
“As outlined in the court documents, a patient’s family filed a petition seeking to compel our hospital to administer medication prescribed by an outside physician. This physician had no privileges to practice medicine at our hospital,” according to the spokesperson.
They continued to say that it “is unable to administer medications to our patients without a valid order from a physician on our medical staff” and that “doing so would violate standard hospital practice and Virginia law.”
“That said, our team has worked around the clock to cooperate with the patient’s family and the Court to identify potential viable solutions, including to make a reasonable attempt to transfer the patient’s care to their preferred physician, which has since happened,” the spokesperson said, adding that “despite what has been shared online, we believe that we have navigated these complexities as swiftly as possible and have remained in compliance with standard hospital practice, including federal and state regulations, throughout this matter.”
Jan. 6 Committee Confirms Schiff Presented Doctored Text Message Between Meadows and Jordan
Epoch Times – The House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol acknowledged on Wednesday that it doctored a text message between former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), excluding content about how they wanted former Vice President Mike Pence to handle electoral votes during the Joint Session of Congress earlier this year.
On Monday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the head of the House Intelligence Committee, showed a graphic during a hearing on newly obtained communications between Meadows and others, including Jordan. The graphic was displayed as the Jan. 6 panel was discussing whether to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over information related to the probe.
The graphic included the title “Lawmaker Text to Meadows.”
The message was presented as follows: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”
“You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr. Meadows about. About a lawmaker suggesting that the former vice president simply throw out votes that he unilaterally deems unconstitutional in order to overturn a presidential election and subvert the will of the American people,” Schiff said.
However, the message was actually a direct quote from former Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, according to The Federalist. The text included an attachment of Schmitz’s determination that Pence could object to electoral votes from states.
The text was also altered to cut off the rest of the sentence, which stated, “in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” the outlet said.
A spokesman for the House panel confirmed to The Epoch Times that the message was doctored.
“The select committee on Monday created and provided Representative Schiff a graphic to use during the business meeting quoting from a text message from ‘a lawmaker’ to Mr. Meadows,” the spokesman said in an email.
“In the graphic, the period at the end of that sentence was added inadvertently,” the spokesman added, without elaborating on how the error was introduced. “The Select Committee is responsible for and regrets the error.”
Jordan and Schiff did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Navy Successfully Tests High-energy Laser Weapon in Gulf of Aden
(UPI) — A U.S. Navy ship successfully fired a new, high-energy laser weapon on Tuesday, destroying a training target.
The USS Portland destroyed the static target in the Gulf of Aden as part of a demonstration.
The gulf separates East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
The system was initially installed on the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship in 2018, successfully destroyed an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in 2020.
The Laser Weapons System Demonstrator (LWSD) is a “follow-on to the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) that afloat forward staging base USS Ponce tested for three years while operating in the Middle East,” according to a Navy release.
Amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) conducted a high-energy laser weapon system demonstration, Dec. 14, while sailing in the Gulf of Aden. Read more ⬇️https://t.co/nYWqgtbLdQ pic.twitter.com/L0xfysIG1q
— U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) December 15, 2021
The LWSD is the Navy’s strongest laser weapon, five times more powerful than the 30-kilowatt LaWS, which is capable of downing small aircraft. Tuesday’s test-firing was not its first trial run.
The five-year-old ship is part of the Essex Amphibious Ready Group. The group departed Naval Base San Diego in August and began operating in the U.S. 5th Fleet region in September.
The Navy says the “region’s geography, climate, and strategic importance offer a unique environment for technology innovation.”
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