Friday, December 31, 2021
Many people hospitalized in the Omicron surge are there for other reasons and have only mild COVID-19
Some patients counted in COVID hospitalization stats are there for other reasons.
These "incidental" cases were found to be prominent in England and South Africa.
Experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci have also pointed to the phenomenon in the US.
A significant proportion of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent weeks were admitted for other reasons, according to health officials and government data.
The exact scale of the phenomenon in the US is not recorded in federal statistics, but has been noted anecdotally.
And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the White House, described the phenomenon, specifically in children, in a Wednesday night interview with MSNBC.
Since all hospital admissions are tested for COVID-19, Fauci said, many are "hospitalized with COVID, as opposed to because of COVID." The real reason for hospitalization might be "a broken leg, or appendicitis, or something like that," he continued.
Julie Zauzmer Weil, a Washington Post reporter, said that a similar thing can happen with adults. Citing an unnamed DC-area health official, Weil wrote in a series of tweets that people with mild COVID who test positive are still counted in the headline hospitalization stats.
Other countries have produced data noting the same phenomenon of "incidental" COVID cases. In data published Friday by the UK National Health Service, 33% of the 8,321 COVID-positive cases in England on December 28 were admitted to the hospital for a different reason.
In a series of tweets posted earlier that week, Chris Hopson, the head of the the umbrella group NHS Providers, which represents individual parts of the health system, said that the level of incidental COVID admissions was a key factor in how senior managers were planning their hospital capacity.
In South Africa, the first nation to record a surge in Omicron cases, a report from its Medical Research Council also found a high rate of incidental cases.
The council noted that in a study of a hospital complex in Tshwane, a city in the hard-hit Gauteng province, 76% of the 166 patients admitted between November 14 and 29 had incidental COVID cases.
While patients having COVID incidentally is less worrying than them having severe COVID, it does not mean that there is nothing to worry about.
David Strain, a senior clinical lecturer at the England's University of Exeter medical school, told The Guardian that incidental admission can still be concerning.
"We [have] seen many other people who have been otherwise stable [with] chronic diseases such as heart failure, ulcerative colitis etc that caught COVID and had a rapid deterioration," he told the outlet.
The complications of having COVID while also having other medical problems could still severely harm patients, Strain said.
“Political Purge”: Marine Corps Grated Zero Religious Exemptions from COVID Vax
The men and women in uniform were ordered to get a COVID shot or get booted. And while they have a right to seek religious exemptions, the high commanders appear not to care much about that.
As of Thursday, Marine Corps has adjudicated 3,080 of the 3,192 requests for religious accommodation concerning the COVID vaccine mandate of which none was granted, according to Marine Corps spokesman Capitan Ryan Bruce. As if trying to “comfort” those thousands of religious Marines who now face a discharge for refusing a COVID jab, he added that during the past seven years, no religious accommodations have been approved for any other vaccine either.
The Marines who spoke with Fox News said their religious exemption applications have been declined without consideration. Eight rejection letters provided to the outlet were reported to be “nearly identical” and cited “military readiness” as the reason behind the denial.
Per the outlet:
“I saw one package from a sergeant who had attached, like, 30 pages of material to substantiate why his belief was sincere, under no lawful obligation to do so,” the master sergeant said. “And then to have this as a response with no individual inquiry and just a generalized assertion of governmental interest is insulting.”
One of the chief warrant officers described the process of religious accommodations — or rather lack of such — as a “travesty,” and added:
People are getting blanket denials, they’re not addressing the individual concerns or beliefs of Marines who are submitting for religious accommodations, and I think that’s just horribly wrong. I honestly believe that they’re not really reading the packages.
The vicious attack on the servicemen’s sincerely held religious beliefs is viewed by many in the Corps as a “political purge” by the Biden administration that is forcing out the military’s “best and brightest.”
The Marine Corps required all active-duty Marines and Reserve members to be fully vaccinated by November 14 and December 14, respectively. After the deadline passed, 103 Marines were separated from the forces on the week of December 16. Per the Corps’ latest update, it has so far discharged 206 Marines with the vaccine refusal discharge code, according to Military.com.
The outlet adds that the Marine’s vaccination rates have been notably lower than those of the rest of the branches. While the final figures for fully vaccinated service members at the time of their respective deadlines for the Navy, Army, and Air Force stood at 96 percent, the Marine Corps reported a rate of 92 percent.
While the Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that “there is always an option” to apply for a religious exemption from COVID shot, none of the military branches has allowed religious servicemen to forgo the shot.
The Government Executive reported last week that the Army received 1,746 requests for religious accommodation, has denied 85, approved zero, and is still processing the rest. The Navy has received 2,844 active-duty requests for religious accommodation and has approved zero. The Marine Corps has received 3,192 requests for religious accommodation and has approved zero. Finally, more than 10,000 Air Force and Space Force troops applied for a religious exemption, with 2,100 already being denied.
When asked earlier this month about the military denying religious exemption for the troops, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said that while the department “respected the right to worship,” he noted that such exemptions granted to the vaccinations are “typically historically very rare,” with such a “tradition” presumably validating the current policy of the blanket denial.
Kirby added that “This has absolutely nothing to do with trampling on the religious liberties of the men and women in uniform,” while further implying that the “safety” from COVID trumps the religious freedoms. “This is not about liberties, it’s about a military medical requirement to keep them safe, to keep their families safe, to keep their units safe,” he said.
While the Biden administration and the Department of Defense in particular underline that the COVID vaccination mandate for the military is needed to maintain military readiness, the latter will suffer drastically if the legal exemptions are further disregarded.
The Air Force has discharged 27 members for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate.
The Navy, which will not begin to discharge members until January indicated that 3,002 Ready Reserve sailors were listed as unvaccinated, missing the branch’s November 28 for vaccination.
The administration is portraying COVID as a deadly disease that will go away only when the 100-percent vaccination rate is achieved, and 82 active-duty personnel have died of COVID complications, per the latest DOD numbers. However, the rate of vaccine-related injuries and deaths connected to the vaccines has far outpaced the number of COVID-related casualties in the military, says Dr. Lee Merritt. While the exact number of adverse reactions to the jabs is unknown, the doctor says, “With the vaccine program we’ve ostensibly killed more of our young active duty people than COVID did,” citing numerous reports of tumors and over 80 cases of myocarditis (as of August) following the COVID shots given to the military.
In November, Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long, a senior U.S. Army aerospace medicine specialist who has treated soldiers injured by COVID vaccines, testified in the U.S. Senate that COVID vaccines pose a greater danger to the health of American servicemen and military readiness than COVID itself and condemned the Biden administration for treating men and women in uniform as “lab rats.” Long added that the Army Public Health Command confirmed to her that adverse events following the vaccination were not tracked, traced, or monitored.
Currently, the Biden administration is facing multiple legal challenges to the COVID vaccine mandate for the military, as The New American has reported (here and here).
Abortion Leading Global Cause of Death in 2021 with 43 Million Killed
Abortion was the leading cause of death globally in 2021, with nearly 43 million unborn babies killed in the womb, according to data provided by Worldometer.
As of noon on December 31, 2021, there were 42.6 million abortions performed in the course of the year, Worldometer revealed, while 8.2 million people died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS, 1.3 million from traffic fatalities, and 1 million from suicide.
Totaling all the deaths in the world from causes other than abortion reveals a figure of 58.7 million, meaning that abortions accounted for just over 42 percent of all human deaths in 2021.
By comparison, worldwide deaths from coronavirus in 2021 totaled around 3.5 million, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Worldometer — voted one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA) — keeps a running tally through the year of major world statistics, including population, births, deaths, automobiles produced, books published, and CO2 emissions.
It also registers the total number of abortions performed worldwide, based on the latest statistics on abortions published by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Globally, there were more deaths from abortion in 2021 than all deaths from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, and traffic accidents combined, according to Worldometer statistics.
The startling number of deaths from abortion, in fact, has led certain observers to call abortion “the social justice cause of our time,” since the sheer magnitude of the problem completely overshadows other human rights issues.
On December 28, Christians around the world celebrated the Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the slaughter of all male children in Israel under the age of two by order of King Herod in an effort to kill the newborn Christ child. Pope Francis has compared Herod’s massacre of the Innocents to the modern practice of killing babies through abortion.
The 49th annual March for Life in the United States will take place in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2022, with the theme “Equality Begins in the Womb.”
“The pro-life movement recognizes the immense responsibility this nation bears to restore equal rights to its most defenseless citizens in the womb,” March for Life president Jeanne Mancini said at a press conference in October.
The stated purpose of the march is to end abortion by “uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square.”
The annual march commemorates the infamous January 22, 1973, Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade which, together with the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, nullified 50 state laws and made abortion legal and available on demand throughout the United States.
Abortion Leading Global Cause of Death in 2021 with 43 Million Killed (breitbart.com)
AOC claims Republicans motivated by 'sexual frustrations' in Twitter rant amid Florida trip controversy Ocasio-Cortez claimed 'Republicans are mad they can't date me'
"Squad" queen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested Friday that Republican critics are motivated by "sexual frustrations" due to the fact that "they can't date" the left-wing congresswoman.
The New York Democrat made the claim in response to online criticism she faced after reports revealed she had traveled to Miami with her boyfriend before the new year.
"If Republicans are mad they can’t date me they can just say that instead of projecting their sexual frustrations onto my boyfriend’s feet," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday in response to former Trump campaign advisor Steve Cortes, who had taken a shot at her boyfriend's attire.
AOC FUNDRAISES AFTER BEING SPOTTED IN MIAMI AMID NYC COVID-19 ONSLAUGHT
Ocasio-Cortez was spotted in Florida with her boyfriend amid a coronavirus spike in New York City, in a photo published by National Review. (National Review )
"Ya creepy weirdos," she continued.
The New York Democrat continued in a tweet thread that it is "starting to get old ignoring the very obvious, strange, and deranged sexual frustrations that underpin the Republican fixation on me, women, [and] LGBT+ people in general."
"These people clearly need therapy, won’t do it, and use politics as their outlet instead. It’s really weird," she added.Ocasio-Cortez made headlines on Friday when it was reported that she and her boyfriend had traveled down to Miami amid the massive COVID surge in New York City.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is seen during the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday morning in Capitol Hill. Washington, D.C. October 23, 2019. (Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The National Review reported that Ocasio-Cortez was spotted out in Miami, publishing a photo of the congresswoman sipping on a drink with her boyfriend.
Since the congresswoman's arrival in the Sunshine State, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign has sent out a fundraising email to drum up cash for the New York congresswoman.
"But, candidly, our fundraising has slowed down since the summer months this year, and we’re relying on your support today to get back on track, hit this goal, and keep Alexandria in Congress fighting for bold solutions for working families," the email reads.
Additionally, a record number of police, paramedics and other first responders in Ocasio-Cortez’s home city have called out sick amid the surge, according to city officials.
AOC claims Republicans motivated by 'sexual frustrations' in Twitter rant amid Florida trip controversy | Fox News
Is a Pushback Against Soft Despotism Coming in 2022? The ruling elite are not going to surrender power without a fight.
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Over the last two years, many of us have been surprised and troubled at how eagerly millions of citizens have surrendered their freedoms to the shifting, contradictory, nakedly politicized diktats of various “experts” and government agencies. Coerced vaccinations, boosters, masks, and social distancing continue to be mandated and just as eagerly obeyed, even in the case of the mild Omicron covid variant. The technocratic Left currently ruling the country has wrung every ounce of unconstitutional power from the sovereign people, a large cohort of whom, especially the cognitive elites, have willingly gone along with every new crisis and command.
As the year ends, signs of a pushback are multiplying. But will such resistance reach the critical mass of voters necessary for liberating us from such “soft despotism” and its wardens?
We shouldn’t be surprised that progressives have seized the opportunity to aggrandize themselves through serial changes on the pretext of an exaggerated crisis. It has long been a truism of history that, as James Madison said in 1788, “there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of power, than by sudden usurpations.”
Nearly half a century later, Alexis de Tocqueville foresaw an even more insidious stealth despotism that could arise in American democracy: “An immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure [the people’s] gratifications and to watch over their fate.” And he prophesized that the bureaucratic regulatory state would be the instrument of this “soft despotism”: a power “absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild” that “covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform.” The goal is “to keep [the people] in perpetual childhood,” for this power is “well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing.”
The last hundred years have seen such a regime gradually become reality. Crises such as the Great Depression, Two World Wars, and other conflicts and recessions provided the pretexts for expanding and concentrating the powers of federal agencies and their “network of small complicated rules.” And like children, too many citizens have accepted these encroachments, willingly ceding their autonomy and freedom to overseers who bribe them with the redistribution of other people’s money, and with promises “alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate” from the cradle to the grave ––what we call “entitlements” but think are unalienable rights.
Moreover, our unprecedented wealth has obscured the dangers of this dependence and weakening of the habits of self-government. But the contrary bad habits of prioritizing comfort, pleasure, and security insidiously erode our tolerance for risk and suffering, the nonnegotiable, eternal constants of human existence. The covid pandemic has graphically revealed this intolerance for risk, which the “managerial elite” has exploited to leverage more power and authority.
Hence the government and its agencies such as the CDC hyped the dangers of an infectious disease whose victims overwhelmingly comprised the elderly already dying of something else. It didn’t take long to see that the typical victim was 80-years-old and possessed multiple comorbidities like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Children and the young––unlike during the Spanish flu––were spared. Masks, lockdowns, and social distancing were mostly pacifiers for soothing anxiety and creating the illusion of control, rather than protecting the vulnerable, even as those measures damaged the economy, impaired education, and multiplied “deaths of despair” like suicide and addiction.
Meanwhile, in Sweden and in states like Florida, the absence of such mandates did not lead to “super-spreader” events, but rather fewer fatalities than countries like England or states like New York with their draconian lockdowns.
These outcomes will surprise no one who understood from the start that after a few months of uncertainty in early 2020, the issue was not the pandemic, but how the pandemic could provide the pretext for expanding government power, and damaging a president whose policies pushed back against the progressives program to “fundamentally transform” the United States. And the way to do that is to erode our unalienable rights and our political freedom, the indispensable tools for checking tyranny and holding office-holders accountable to the people.
Now, however, there are multiple signs that voters are getting fed up with the whole covid endless crises triggered by variants and spikes in infections, a datum that creates big dramatic numbers and increases, but isn’t as significant as death rates. They’re sick of their children’s schools serially opening and shutting, demanding useless masks, and making grammar school kids eat lunch outside in the cold. They’ve had it with the endless parade of “experts,” especially government functionaries unaccountable to either the voters or the market, playing the endless loop of virus porn.
Nor are they fooled by the Dems’ proposed electoral “reform” legislation, which would hijack elections from the states, and put into law many of the shady practices we saw in the 2020 presidential election. And for a year they’ve watched Biden’s feckless incompetence weaken the nation’s prestige and interests abroad as both decline in the face of Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon, China’s threatening Taiwan and our regional allies, and Russia’s positioning tens of thousands of troops and weapons on its border with Ukraine––all the consequences of our shameful skedaddle from Afghanistan that cost 13 dead American troops, left behind billions of dollars in materiel, and stranded hundreds of American citizens and Afghan allies.
Finally, growing numbers of voters have soured on progressives’ “cancel culture” and strong-arm tactics––their “relentless moral condescension, the messianism of mass protests, physical intimidation, social ostracism and demands that you simply shut up”––as the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger describes the treatment of renegade Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, who stopped their Build Back Better binge of green pork and welfare lucre.
Throw in the Biden administration’s abysmal record of failure on every important issue like inflation and border security, and things are looking grim for the Dems. Biden’s approval numbers have been tanking for months, and now even usually reliable constituencies are disgruntled. An Economist and You.gov poll finds fewer than 3 in 10 adults under 30 approve of the job Biden’s doing. A Zogby poll’s approval numbers for independents, the most critical swing-vote, are particularly ominous. They favor Republican control of Congress by 23 points. And another critical constituency for Democrats, Hispanics, are moving towards Republicans. According to a Wall Street Journal poll in early December, Hispanic support in Congressional races is split evenly at 37% for each party.
As of now, these portents suggest a midterm “shellacking” of the Dems, as Barack Obama called the debacle of the 2010 midterms that hamstrung his ambitions to remake America. And Obama was a well-liked president with tons of voter good will, not a cognitively impaired mediocre grifter.
But let’s not be hasty. The Dems still possess the commanding heights of media, entertainment, popular culture, sports, government agencies, and universities. They’re still addled by their humiliation at the hands and tweets of Donald Trump, and still thirsting for revenge against him and his supporters, the “bitter clingers,” “deplorables,” and “smelly Wal-Mart shoppers” who refuse to accept the superiority of self-proclaimed “brights” who feel entitled to push them around.
The ruling elite are not going to surrender power without a fight, and we’d better be ready. Next year will determine whether “soft despotism” is our future, or the love of freedom and our unalienable rights will triumph once again.
Is a Pushback Against Soft Despotism Coming in 2022? | Frontpagemag
Betty White, television legend, dead at 99
Betty White, a comedy icon known for roles in "Golden Girls" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has died. She was 99.
Her agent and close friend Jeff Witjas confirmed the news on Friday.
"Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever," Witjas said in a statement to People magazine. "I will miss her terribly and so will the animal world that she loved so much. I don't think Betty ever feared passing because she always wanted to be with her most beloved husband Allen Ludden. She believed she would be with him again."
The cause of death is unclear. Reps for White and the Monterey County Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment.
White was the last living star of "Golden Girls" – a 1985-1992 comedy about four women of a certain age.
She had a rich career in films as well, most notably in "The Proposal" and more recently, "Toy Story 4."
White's penchant for comedy never seemed to fade, as she again found success on television with the sitcom "Hot in Cleveland," which ran from 2010-2015.
The star would have turned 100 on Jan. 17.
White was born Jan. 17, 1922 in Oak Park Illinois and grew up in Los Angeles. She did some modeling and by the 1940s was getting work appearing on the radio. That segued into hosting a variety show on television and in 1950 she was nominated for her first Emmy.
After appearing as the title character on the television show "Life With Elizabeth" from 1952-55, White went on to appear on a number of talk and game shows in the 1950s and 60s.
In 1973, she landed the first part that brought her national recognition: Sue Ann Nivens, the conniving, sweet-as-pie-stab-you-in-the-back Happy Homemaker on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," a role that brought her back-to-back Emmys.
White's next signature part, Rose Nylund on "The Golden Girls," was almost the opposite of Sue Ann. Rose, a native of St. Olaf, Minnesota, was sweet, naive and more than a little ditzy. She brought White another Emmy.
Later White appeared as a guest star on a number of television shows, on the soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful," in the 2009 film "The Proposal" and a 2010 Super Bowl ad for Snickers before joining "Hot in Cleveland" later that year.
In more recent years, she slowed down a bit, mostly appearing in single episodes of television like "Young & Hungry," "Bones" and "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Her final roles came in 2019 when she lent her voice to "Toy Story 4" and it's Disney+ spin-off series "Forkey Asks a Question." She played a character cheekily named Bitey White.
She also lent her voice to the 2019 animated flick "Trouble."
White married three times: in 1945 to Army pilot Dick Barker, from 1947-49 to Hollywood agent Lane Allen and to "Password" host Allen Ludden from 1963 until his death in 1981.
This is a developing story, check back for updates
New COVID at-home test dangerous and misleading: but everybody’s doing it, so who cares, right?
This article is thanks to Proud Conservative Mom
by Jon Rappoport
December 30, 2021
Recently, I’ve been writing fiction, satire, parody, to expose the insanity of the pandemic scam. This article is not that. This article is fact. Buckle up.
Since the beginning of the so-called pandemic, I’ve been attacking the value of the PCR diagnostic test from many angles. The primary angle, as my readers know, is: SARS-CoV-2 was never isolated, never proved to exist.
However, I’ve also ventured into the bubble world where a few billion people blindly accept the existence of the virus—and I’ve shown that even within that world, the internal contradictions and lies abound.
One again, now, I’m entering that bubble world, since the powers-that-be are widely promoting the use of an at-home test for the “virus.” This test is self-administered. No doctor, nurse, or technician is present. What could possibly go wrong, as millions of people perform the test on themselves?
Well, let’s lead off with DANGER.
The reference is an undated FDA document titled, “BinaxNOWTM COVID-19 Antigen Self TEST.” The Binax test kit is manufactured by Abbott.
Here is the key quote: “The Reagent Solution [included in the test kit] contains a harmful chemical (see table below). If the solution contacts the skin or eye, flush with copious amounts of water. If irritation persists, seek medical advice…”
Then the FDA document lists that harmful chemical: sodium azide.
Just how harmful is it?
For an answer, let’s look at a CDC document titled, “Facts About Sodium Azide.” We find this statement:
“Sodium azide is a rapidly acting, potentially deadly chemical that exists as an odorless white solid.”
Then there is this: “Sodium azide prevents the cells of the body from using oxygen. When this happens, the cells die. Sodium azide is more harmful to the heart and the brain than to other organs, because the heart and the brain use a lot of oxygen.”
Yes, as with all poisons, the degree of damage depends on the dosage, but you decide whether “potentially deadly,” as the CDC describes sodium azide, signifies a significant risk.
If you read the FDA document I referenced above, you’ll see that the reagent containing sodium azide is involved in the self-administered COVID test, and the whole test procedure is complex enough to allow fumbles and mistakes—such as a spill of the “deadly chemical.”
Don’t believe me? Try this FDA quote on for size: “To perform the test, an anterior nasal swab specimen is collected by the patient, then 6 drops of extraction reagent from a dropper bottle are added to the top hole of the swab well. The patient sample is inserted into the test card through the bottom hole of the swab well, and firmly pushed upwards until the swab tip is visible through the top hole. The swab is rotated 3 times clockwise and the card is closed, bringing the extracted sample into contact with the test strip. Test results are interpreted visually at 15 minutes based on the presence or absence of visually detectable pink/purple colored lines.”
See what I mean? Good luck.
Now let’s move on to the second problem with this at-home self-performed COVID test: it’s grossly misleading. The results are ambiguous.
The FDA document I’ve been quoting contains this gem: “The BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self Test does not differentiate between SARS-CoV and SARS…CoV-2.”
BOOM. In other words, a positive test, indicating infection, could mean nothing more than infection with the 2003 “SARS virus”—and that “epidemic” was a dud. But wait, there’s more:
“Positive results do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”
Double trouble. The person who tests positive could simply be housing bacteria in his body, AND whatever germ the test is detecting may not even be causing disease.
Other than that, the at-home test is perfect.
This Abbott BinaxNow at-home COVID test is the market leader. About 75% of all retail test-kit sales in the US come from Abbott.
Back in the early spring of 2020, I told you the test was the key to faking the pandemic. Now the government wants the population to perform the test-fakery on themselves. With, of course, the added danger of exposing themselves to a highly destructive chemical in the process.
But don’t worry, be happy. On many days of every week, little Tony Fauci will appear on television and inform you that testing is necessary, and he’ll omit grisly details. Trust him.
And then march forward, secure in the knowledge that lies and omissions keep us safe.
ABC Doesn’t Have The Backbone To Put Ann Coulter On ‘The View’
ABC Doesn't Have The Backbone To Put Ann Coulter On 'The View' (thefederalist.com)
If the hosts were really up for a challenge from a unique personality, they would bring conservative firebrand Ann Coulter back to the table.
ABC’s “The View” is having a hard time finding a new conservative co-host. The ones who’ve auditioned either are liberals masquerading as conservatives on air, or have proven they’re too much smarter than the incumbent panelists. Five months after co-star Meghan McCain left the show, the hosts can’t experience the latter again.
“At the same time,” Politico Playbook reported Monday, the new host “can’t be seen as too chummy with the other co-hosts, as the network’s market-research shows that the audience wants to see the women spar.”
“Sources said that this hurt the chances of Ana Navarro, a regular fill-in on the conservative chair who worked as a surrogate for Joe Biden in 2020: She is perceived by the producers as too friendly with the other hosts and not a traditional Republican,” the newsletter continued.
Despite alienating McCain with a toxic work environment, the show’s hosts and producers maintain hope of finding a replacement who fits the right criteria outlined by Politico:
Sources close to the show said that the search has stalled as executives struggle to find a conservative cast-member who checks all the right boxes. They will not consider a Republican who is a denier of the 2020 election results, embraced the January 6 riots, or is seen as flirting too heavily with fringe conspiracy theories or the MAGA wing of the GOP. But at the same time, the host must have credibility with mainstream Republicans, many of whom still support Donald Trump.
“Right now, we still do need a really conservative voice,” Co-Host Sunny Hostin told New York Magazine in November, adding the new permanent addition to the panel must not be “duplicative.”
If the hosts were really up for a challenge from a unique personality, they would bring repeat guest and conservative firebrand Ann Coulter back to the table, this time for an audition. She’s entertaining on television, fits the criteria, and offers an articulate perspective severely absent from the program.
Even left-wing writer Mickey Kaus agrees.
“Ann Coulter seems an obvious choice,” Kaus wrote on Twitter. “Not Never Trump. Not pro-Trump (the-person). Not election ‘denier.’ Just MAGA enough! All boxes checked. Also listens before arguing, occasionally changes mind. (Do they want that?)”
Considering the show’s audition process to this point, it doesn’t sound like it.
“I was told when I left, they were looking for a real conservative,” McCain told Variety in October. “I gave them a list. None of them have tested, by the way.”
(To be clear, former Trump State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, who produced a viral segment challenging Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on the Steele Dossier, did not audition until a month later.)
The panelists on “The View” don’t take well to being challenged, not from a permanent colleague on a daily basis. If they did, McCain wouldn’t have been pushed off the program after four seasons.
Love or hate her, Coulter, an author of 12 books, many of which ended up as New York Times bestsellers, holds her own in dynamic discussions on complex topics. Her prior appearances on the daytime program have shown just that to the visible ire of its liberal panelists.
Will they tolerate welcoming Coulter as a host among their ranks? Almost certainly not.
206 Marines Kicked Out for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines
The Marine Corps has separated 206 Marines for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine, the military branch announced Thursday.
Active-duty Marines had a deadline to get fully vaccinated by Nov. 28, while for reservists, the deadline was Dec. 28.
By the deadline, 95 percent of all active-duty Marines had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while 86 percent of the Reserve force had received the first shot.
That means around 8,000 active-duty Marines and 5,000 Marine reserve personnel may face separation for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
“The Marine Corps is still tracking 1,007 approved administrative or medical exemptions,” Capt. Andrew Wood, a Marine Corps spokesman, said in a statement to news outlets.
The Marine Corps has denied 3,115 of 3,247 religious exemption applications received. The rest are still being processed, according to the statement.
Some unvaccinated Marines call the discharge a “political purge.”
“There’s something fundamentally wrong at this point with our nation’s leadership,” a major with more than 17 years of active service told Fox News on the condition of anonymity. “We are facing an unconstitutional edict that I think is very targeted as a political purge, taking out some of the best and brightest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians from the Space Force.”
These Marines claimed they received “blanket denials” for their religious exemption applications, which cited “military readiness” as the primary reason for rejection.
The Marine Corps hasn’t responded to a request from The Epoch Times for comment.
According to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act recently signed into law by President Joe Biden, those discharges must be either honorable or general under honorable conditions.
So far, the military hasn’t granted any religious exemption yet.
For example, the Air Force, which had the earliest deadline among all branches, has received over 10,700 religious exemption applications. As of last week, 2,130 have already been denied. The remaining 8,636 are still being reviewed. None have been approved.
A group of 47 Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) supports a lawsuit by a group of Navy SEALs and Navy service members seeking religious exemptions in a federal court.
“Defendants’ position that a vaccine exemption combined with non-invasive precautions are sufficient for secularly exempt individuals, but insufficient for servicemen and women who simply seek to adhere to their sincerely held religious beliefs, is discriminatory and a straight-forward violation of the First Amendment,” the lawmakers wrote in the amicus brief (pdf) filed to the court.
206 Marines Kicked Out for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines (theepochtimes.com)
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