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Newsom, and Lightfoot, and Brown, Oh My!

By now many Americans have learned what slimy, deceitful hypocrites California governor Gavin Newsom and his wealthy, well-connected friends are. In a stunning act of arrogant “do what I say, not what I do, PEONS,” he and his privileged co-scofflaws dined at an exclusive restaurant in Napa Valley—indoors without masks—in violation of his own rules.

His co-scofflaws included Dustin Corcoran, the CEO of the California Medical Association, and Janus Norman, the group’s lobbyist and senior vice president. Apparently, some medical professionals don’t really think dining indoors mask-less with friends puts their lives at risk. Now I’m waiting for all of Hollywood, the Democrat Party, and the faux-journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to explode in paroxysms of sanctimonious rage and primal fear at the prospect of the imminent deaths of all the people these twelve scofflaws will infect.

But don’t worry, Newsom is very very sorry he got caught.

The reality is many—perhaps most—leftists don’t believe the alarmist claims they exploit for political—that is, anti-Trump—purposes. In the midst of the first COVID-19 surge, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot commanded her subjects to forgo haircuts, while she—unmasked—had her hair done because she wanted to look good in front of the cameras and because she cares about her “hygiene”—unlike, presumably, her subjects. After the election, she joined her subjects in the street for a victory celebration and then promptly put the kibosh on their Thanksgiving celebrations saying, “You must cancel the normal Thanksgiving plans, particularly if they include guests that do not live in your immediate household.”

She followed that up with her Thanksgiving “advisory”:

– Stay home unless for essential reasons

– Stop having guests over—including family members you do not live with

– Avoid non-essential travel

– Cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans

Not to be outdone in hypocrisy or authoritarian intrusiveness, Oregon’s “openly bisexual” governor Kate Brown has issued these commands, which, if not followed, can result in  fines up to $1,250 or 30 days in jail:

  • Private Social Events—limited to two households or six individuals in a closed group (including Thanksgiving)
  • Wear a mask in your own home on Thanksgiving, only removing it when eating
  • Don’t leave your home during the two-week shutdown

So much for “our bodies, ourselves.”

While in June Brown said “she believes the use of tear gas against protesters is unacceptable,” she is now working with “state police and local law enforcement” to ensure compliance with her Thanksgiving orders.  Think about that for a minute.

This is the same governor who allowed the creation of the potential super-spreader rebel state of CHAZ/CHOP in six blocks of Portlandia and who allowed mostly violent potential super-spreader protests to ravage the rest of Portlandia. So, does bisexual Brown really believe gatherings of ten are highly likely to be lethal gatherings?

Privileged leftists who dine at uber-swanky, $350 per person ($35-45 per glass of wine) restaurants are utterly cavalier about destroying people’s livelihoods while they do not themselves believe that socializing mask-less puts everyone in mortal danger. Newsom and other privileged Democrats wield their inordinate power recklessly, destroying countless small businesses while sating their gourmet appetites on the finest food the monied can buy.

When I refer to “alarmist claims,” I’m not suggesting that the Wuhan Red Death is not alarming or that the death rate is not tragic. I’m suggesting that the claims of leftists about the virus are alarmist in that they are not balanced by either the inclusion of all relevant statistics or by a modicum of humility about what is known about treatment and prevention.

For example, while leftists blame Wuhan virus spikes on the evil mask-questioners who walk among us purportedly like Grim Reapers, they rarely if ever discuss the worldwide Wuhan spikes in countries with more stringent lockdown and mask mandates.

When areas lock down, virus infections stall. When lockdowns end, virus infections increase. But we can’t afford the social, psychological, physical, and economic consequences of locking down forever.

Rational people understand that a contagion like the Wuhan virus will spread. What is needed are good therapeutics and herd immunity achieved via a combination of infections and vaccines. Social distancing for those most at risk of serious complications and/or death is wise. Social distancing for healthy people under 60, school closures, and business lockdowns are foolhardy at minimum and downright dangerous for many people.

While COVID-infected people should mask if they must go out, evidence that widespread masking of healthy people prevents COVID is scanty. According to the New York Times, a recent, large, randomized study out of Denmark provides evidence for what many have been saying:

The researchers had hoped that masks would cut the infection rate by half among wearers. Instead, 42 people in the mask group, or 1.8 percent, got infected, compared with 53 in the unmasked group, or 2.1 percent. The difference was not statistically significant.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Henning Bundgaard, stated that his study indicated that “not a lot” is gained “from wearing a mask.”

Perhaps it’s past time for political leaders to abandon mask mandates for children and healthy adults under 60. And surely, it’s past time for the mask-obsessed among us to stop verbally attacking those who choose not to mask as irresponsible, ignorant, uncaring, selfish, evil killers.

As the nightmarish 2020 draws to a close, there are reasons for optimism. President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed has  resulted in the development of not one but two highly effective vaccines at warp speed. As of this writing, both Moderna and Pfizer have developed vaccines that are about 95% effective, and evidence suggests that vaccine-induced immunity may last years and be more effective than immunity that develops from contracting COVID-19.

So, we have reasons to believe that in a few months, life will be able to return to normal. In the meantime, school closures must end. There has never been any science suggesting that schools should have closed. If children contract COVID-19, the statistical likelihood that they will survive is 99.99998%.

Annually, about 4,000 children die in car accidents with 630 of those being 12 or younger; 800 children drown; and in the 2019-2020 flu season, 188 children died. So far about 130 children have died from COVID-19. Anytime leftists want to impose a restriction on the freedom of others, they ask, “Isn’t saving the life of even one person worth the sacrifice?” So, are we going to prohibit all children from riding in cars except for essential activities? Are we going to prohibit all children from swimming in pools, ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans? Are we going to close schools every year during flu season? If not, why not?

Those parents whose children live in homes with at-risk family members can choose to keep their children home. Those teachers who are in an at-risk group can stay home. But all schools should open. Even leftist New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof recently and grudgingly admitted that Trump has long been right on school closures:

Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children. …

Democrats helped preside over school closures that have devastated millions of families and damaged children’s futures. … In both Europe and the United States, schools have not been linked to substantial transmission, and teachers and family members have not been shown to be at extra risk. …  Meanwhile, the evidence has mounted of the human cost of school closures.

Leftists have provided ample evidence of their poor judgment, their Faustian willingness to abandon principles to acquire power, their Machiavellian abuse of power to circumscribe liberty, their hypocrisy, and their elitism. We better hope Americans awaken from their “woke” stupor before it’s too late.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Newsom-and-Lightfoot-and-Brown-Oh-My.mp3


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Aborted Babies in COVID Vaccines?

Written by Paula Ryan

With the number of deaths in the United States officially attributed to COVID-19 (defined by the CDC as anyone who died with COVID-19, though not necessarily because of it) now around 230,000 and a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases throughout the U.S. over the past few weeks, a growing sense of urgency has been created for a COVID-19 vaccine. Several companies are developing what are said to be promising vaccine candidates, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar said earlier this week that a vaccine should be ready for the most vulnerable subgroups by the end of this year.

While many see this as good news, there are some serious ethical concerns surrounding these vaccines that need to be addressed.

To begin with, six out of the ten major COVID-19 vaccine programs use cells from electively aborted fetuses for vaccine production, which makes these vaccine programs highly controversial and creates the likelihood that many will be unwilling to receive the vaccine. This is an ethical dilemma that members of the pro-life community have wrestled with since the 1960s, when researchers first advocated for the use fetal tissue from elective abortions to create cell lines to manufacture vaccines. Two of these cell lines are the ones being used in five of the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Many individuals have come to terms with the use of fetal tissue derived from abortions that were performed over 50 years ago since it isn’t directly causing additional harm, while still opposing the use of newly harvested fetal tissue. This is also the position of the Trump administration which, in June 2019, announced through HHS that it would suspend research “that requires new acquisition of fetal tissue from elective abortions,” while still allowing the use of aborted fetal tissue through older cell lines.

As Dr. David Prentice, Vice President and Director of Research for the Charlotte Lozier Institute suggests, for many, the ethical dilemma surrounding the use of such cells for vaccine production will still raise problems of conscience for many who are offered the vaccine even though these cells have been propagated for years in a laboratory and are far removed from the abortion. This is because the connection between the abortion – the ending of a human life – and the cell lines derived from the harvesting of the fetal tissue cannot be denied.

In reality, this should not even be an issue, since viable vaccines can and have been made without using aborted fetal tissue. So, not only is this practice highly ethically questionable, it’s not at all necessary to achieving the same result. For example, vaccines for polio, measles, and mumps were created by monkey cells and chicken eggs. The fact of the matter is, there are several successful alternatives available for creating vaccines that do NOT require the use of aborted fetal tissue, which are proven to be scientifically viable and often scientifically preferable. And according to Dr. Tara Sander Lee, Associate Scholar for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, not one single person would be prevented from being vaccinated today if we stopped harvesting fresh tissues from aborted fetuses, nor would the future development of new vaccines be hindered.

Furthermore, research shows that human cell lines for vaccines can easily be produced ethically by deriving them from adult cells. For example, cell lines could be created by using tissue that is discarded during surgery or by using organs that are donated after death. If, however, researchers truly do need to use fetal cells, they could derive their cell cultures from tissue donated from prematurely born infants who die of natural causes. Ethically speaking, in these scenarios, developing a cell line would be no different than using donated organs.

Given this information, it begs the question: If there are other ethical methods that can successfully be used to create a vaccine for COVID-19, why are researchers still determined to use aborted fetal tissue? One reason might be that advocating for the use of harvested body parts from aborted children provides the abortion industry with a reason to continue the ghoulish practice of abortion. What makes matters worse is that they are using the pandemic and the fears of those who are vulnerable to COVID-19 to further their twisted agenda.

Wherever a person falls in his or her convictions about vaccinations, they will be well served by deciding ahead of time – before these COVID vaccines become a reality, and perhaps even a requirement – exactly what they are willing, and unwilling, to accept.


This article was originally published at The Family Foundation blog.




Teenage Girl Becomes Infertile after Gardasil Vaccination

Gardasil has been controversial from the beginning. While other vaccines protect against diseases spread by casual contact, Gardasil was developed to protect against a sexually transmitted disease called Human Papilloma Virus or HPV. Merck & Co., the manufacturer, has been very effective at lobbying governments around the world to make the vaccine mandatory for school attendance. Despite the frequent objections of doctors and parents, it has been administered to tens of millions of 11- and 12-year-old young girls around the world.

Now comes the case of a 16-year-old Australian girl who suffered “premature ovarian failure” after receiving Gardasil. Her ovaries have shut down, her eggs have been destroyed, and she will never be able to have children.

Dr. Deirdre Little, the Australian physician who treated the girl, has published a complete account in the British Medical Journal. (BMJ Case Reports 2012; doi:10.1136/bcr-2012-006879) Her report explains that the girl’s menstrual cycles were regular until she received the Gardasil vaccination in the Fall of 2008. By January 2009, her cycle had become irregular. Over the course of the next two years, her menses became increasingly scant and irregular, until by 2011, she had ceased menstruating altogether.

Early menopause is highly unusual. In this case, the girl was in excellent health, and had no family or personal medical history that could explain this premature menopause. Her first effort to obtain medical assistance for her amenorrhoea resulted in the doctor advising her to take oral contraceptives. Had she agreed, such drugs would have masked the problem and most likely the possible cause as well. But she declined.

It should be noted that many young girls are told, as she was, to take oral contraceptives as an antidote to what is called in the medical field, oligomenorrhoea, which means infrequent or very light menstruation. Most probably take their physician’s advice, which means that there may be many more cases of “premature ovarian failure” than we now know, since the contraceptives mask the symptoms.

In the Australian case, after testing the levels of numerous hormones, and the function of various internal organs, the girl was diagnosed by Dr. Little as having “premature ovarian failure”, which is defined as “the presence of menopausal gonadotrophin levels in association with over 3 months of amenorrhoea or oligomenorrhoea before age 40 years.” Further testing confirmed that all of her eggs—every last one—were dead. She was and is totally and irrevocably infertile.

This case was reported to the local vaccine manufacturer in Australia, called the Therapeutic Goods Administration, to find out what they knew about the vaccine’s effect on a woman’s reproductive system. Very little, it turned out. The TGA had records of various tests on rat testes, but no records of the effect of the vaccine on rat ovaries.

It is very rare for a healthy 16-year-old girl to go through menopause. It is also a personal tragedy of the first order, one that will only grow in magnitude as she marries and yearns to start a family.

While Dr. Little could not confirm that Gardasil caused the destruction of the girl’s reproductive system, she was able to rule out all other possible causes. The circumstantial evidence implicating Gardasil is strong.

The world has just celebrated what the U.N. has designated as the “International Day of the Girl Child.” In the resolution announcing this day last December, the General Assembly stated that it “Invites all Member States, relevant organizations of the United Nations system and other international organizations, as well as civil society, to observe the International Day of the Girl Child, and to raise awareness of the situation of girls around the world.” (emphasis added) The resolution talks of empowering women, enabling them to make decisions, supporting them, recognizing their human rights, and ending discrimination.

Tens of millions of young girls have received the Gardasil vaccine since its approval by the FDA six years ago. If even a tiny fraction of them have experienced infertility as a result, then these “girl children” have been denied a very fundamental right, that is, the right to decide how many children they want to have.

In the case of the Australian girl the effect is irreversible. She has lost an integral part of her womanhood, while still but a child. Women deserve better.