Two students at Oakland University in Michigan allege that they have faced widespread discrimination on campus after receiving a religious exception from a vaccine mandate.
Jake Yetzke and Inara Ramazanova, who are both members of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), detailed in an emailed statement that university faculty members and students have ostracized the duo for not taking the coronavirus vaccine.
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In what was characterized as a blow against the state constitution’s Blaine amendments, members of the House and Senate on Tuesday passed a slate of bills aimed at providing opportunity scholarships for Michigan students.
Senate Bills 687 and 688 and House Bills 5404 and 5405 all passed mainly along party lines, with Republicans supporting the legislation and Democrats in opposition. Each chamber’s respective education committees moved the bills forward earlier in the day.
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Across the political spectrum, Americans are recognizing the importance not just of school choice but of what students actually learn in schools. Elected representatives have finally taken notice as well. In Michigan, the state legislature has proposed two bills that seek to address how American history and civics are taught.
Unfortunately, some want teachers to tell students that they should understand American history primarily by looking for racism, injustice, and oppression. The phrase “critical race theory” (CRT) has been used mainly in academia to describe this filter on history and civic instruction.
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The National Institute of Health (NIH) on Wednesday sent a letter to Representative James Comer (R-KY-01), correcting claims that the U.S. had not funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
The assertions, made by NIH Director Francis Collins and NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, detail that EcoHealth Alliance violated certain terms and conditions of the grant.
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday that all New York City municipal workers would be required to have a COVID-19 vaccination.
All municipal employees, including police and firefighters, will have until Oct. 29 to receive their first shot or risk losing their jobs, according to de Blasio. City employees will receive an additional $500 in their paychecks after receiving their first dose.
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The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over a recently-signed law that forbids the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, according to CNN.
The lawsuit represents a group of teachers and students who support CRT, and is supported by the ACLU, the Oklahoma NAACP, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The suit claims that the law infringes on the rights of freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
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Assistant Secretary of Health Richard Levine, a man who identifies as a woman and goes by the name of Rachel, has been sworn in as the first “transgender” four-star admiral in America, as reported by the New York Post.
On Tuesday, the 63-year-old Levine was named as an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which is not one of the armed forces of the United States military. Following the swearing-in ceremony, Levine tweeted that he was “deeply honored and grateful to join the ranks of men and women across this great nation who have committed to defend the United States against small and large threats, known and unknown.”
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Over 60% of Americans said that President Joe Biden’s policies were at least somewhat responsible for the accelerating inflation in the United States, a new poll shows.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Tuesday shows that around 40% of respondents said that the Biden administration’s policies were “very responsible” for higher inflation, while 22% said that they were “somewhat responsible.” The poll results come as inflation levels hit record highs and economists predict that inflation, along with supply chain shortages, could persist into 2022.
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Southwest Airlines has scrapped its plan to put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave while their exemption requests are under review, CNBC reported Tuesday.
Unvaccinated employees who have applied for, but haven’t yet received a religious or medical exemption, will reportedly be able to keep their jobs—for now. The federal deadline for the Biden regime’s vaccine mandate is December 8. If their requests for exemptions are not approved by that date, airline officials say they can continue to work “while following mask and distancing guidelines until the request has been reviewed.”
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Facebook is reportedly planning on rebranding and is set to announce a new company name next week, according to The Verge.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg intends to announce the new name at the Facebook Connect conference on Oct. 28, a source familiar with the matter told The Verge. The rebrand is reportedly an attempt by Zuckerberg to shift public perception of the company as a social media platform to a technology conglomerate with several different products beyond the Facebook social network.
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Facebook’s seemingly-unending stream of bad publicity continued this week, when it was fined nearly $70 million by the United Kingdom for what is being described as a deliberate lack of compliance into an anti-trust investigation.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy for nearly a year, and ordered the company to produce information “required information related to an initial enforcement order (IEO) placed on it by the watchdog, despite repeated requests for it to do so,” according to TechCrunch.
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On August 24, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo to senior Pentagon leadership announcing that he was implementing a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for all military service members. The day before, the FDA had issued full authorization to Pfizer for their Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine product (the nomenclature of which is meant to be a mashup of the words “COVID”, “mRNA”, and “community”) . At first glance it would seem that the mandatory vaccination policy, while scientifically unsound and strategically foolish, was at least a policy being implemented according to both the letter of the directive and in accordance with the law. But a further examination of the facts and the manner in which this order is being implemented makes clear that the military’s implementation of this order is illegal and highly unethical.
In the memo, Secretary Austin issued a directive and a promise, that “Mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 will only use COVID-19 vaccines that receive full licensure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in accordance with FDA-approved labeling and guidance.” The problem with this is that the Comirnaty vaccine product that was approved by the FDA is not available anywhere in the Military Health System. It is not even in production, according to the military’s TRICARE healthcare providers. If a soldier goes to a military hospital or a private provider to receive an approved Pfizer COVID vaccine, he will be administered the unapproved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which is a vaccine that is not approved but has been administered under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). We are told that this is but a brand name difference, that the formulation is the same, and they can be used interchangeably. But as the FDA was approving the Comirnaty product, they were renewing the authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech product. If it’s just a matter of brand name, why issue an approval for one brand name and an EUA renewal for the other? This is because they are not actually the same.
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A national, parent-led organization filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging policies at Wellesley Public Schools, which includes segregated “affinity groups” and a “bias reporting” program.
Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed the complaint against Wellesley Public Schools (WPS) in a Massachusetts federal court “alleging that the district has systemically and repeatedly violated students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Massachusetts Students’ Freedom of Expression Law through the use of segregated ‘affinity groups’ and an onerous speech code featuring a ‘bias reporting’ program,” according to the press release.
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Former President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night the formation of a new media and entertainment company that soon will launch a social platform named “TRUTH Social,” seeking to shake up a media landscape often hostile to him and his supporters.
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The Michigan Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a sweeping school choice plan that funds student learning through education savings accounts.
Called Michigan Student Opportunity Accounts, the legislation would allow parents to utilize state dollars as they see fit, by either staying in the traditional government system, enrolling in another option such as a private or virtual school, or receiving additional tutoring or other support.
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