A 57 year old waitress named Virginia Alleyne, who was fired from her job at Legends Restaurant in Yankee Stadium after 17 years for being unvaccinated, has sued NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
On Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, Mayor Adams took the podium to announce an exemption to his covid vaccine mandate: unvaccinated professional athletes may now play with their teams at home games. Also, unvaccinated fans can (for now) enter stadiums to watch them.
However, unvaccinated WORKERS still can’t work at these places–or anywhere. As I described in my last post, if you do not submit to medical coercion, you cannot hold a job in the City of New York.
Illogical, Unjust, Unscientific and Elitist are just a few words to describe this situation, which privileges the wealthy, famous and well-connected over the common working man and woman. It is an obvious and egregious double standard.
Virginia Alleyne is fighting back against this injustice. She filed her suit on Opening Day too. It reads in part, “If an unvaccinated professional athlete can play in a baseball game, a bartender should be able to serve alcohol or a waitress should be allowed to serve food at the same venue.”
It is hard to overstate the pressure to vaccinate in NYC. It wasn’t JUST that the unvaccinated could not go where others could. It was that you would lose your job, your business, and the ability to earn a living anywhere in the five boroughs if you didn’t vaccinate. At one hospital, the unvaccinated not only lost their jobs but also paid time off was revoked as well as 401K employer distributions. While the “Key to NYC” has been suspended (for now), all New Yorkers (except for a special few anointed by King Adams) MUST be vaccinated in order to have a job.
Ms. Alleyne calls the mandates “despicable” and said, “I’ve been struggling. I can barely make ends meet. Everybody else folded. Everyone choose to make money. I chose to starve because of the principle.”
If you would like to support Virginia Alleyne and the class action lawsuit that has been filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on behalf of herself and “all other individuals similarly situated”, you can do so here.
Let’s recap the vaccine mandate situation in New York City. Nobody can work without showing proof of a covid-19 vaccination. You must be vaccinated to earn a living in the Big Apple. The mandate is in effect in all sectors, for all workers regardless of position. Even a teenage babysitter is expected to show proof of vaccination if asked. Unvaccinated city workers are put on unpaid leave or terminated, and unvaccinated private sector workers get fired. Capiche?
This, even though there have been MORE deaths classed as Covid in 2021 when vaccines were available, than in 2020 when there weren’t. It is fully acknowledged that the vaccines do not stop viral spread. And we can’t even be sure that the fabled claim that “the vaccine prevents hospitalization and death” is true. This data analysis of covid patients showed that hospitals declared those admitted with unknown vaccine status as “unvaccinated.” Once the vaccine records were matched and verified, the unvaccinated cases dropped by a third. And, the initial numbers of hospitalized vaccinated patients were shown to have been “grossly understated” by THOUSANDS.
The “Key to NYC” program expired on March 7, which means the previously banned unvaccinated are once again allowed inside restaurants and other venues. But the mandates made it socially acceptable to discriminate, so some businesses keep up those nice, blue city-made “unvaccinated, do not enter!” signs in their windows.
NY Nets basketball star Kyrie Irving made waves last year for his refusal to vaccinate. When previous NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio put forth the private sector mandate last December, that meant Kyrie couldn’t play for the Nets. Eventually, they let him play again, but only for road games. Why? Because Kyrie would be in violation of the mandate if he played home games, in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. He was allowed to play with his team in other cities because those cities DIDN’T have mandates. The virus stopped being a problem when Kyrie left town.
The virus also stops being a problem when unvaccinated VISITING players come to town. An unvaccinated player on the opposing team can play at Barclays Center (because he’s not an employee of an NYC business).
When the “Key to NYC” expired, that meant the Barclays was no longer off limits for unvaccinated spectators. So, Kyrie Irving attended a home game a few weeks ago, as a spectator.
To recap: Kyrie Irving, unvaccinated, could not play basketball at Barclays because of a vaccine mandate. But unvaccinated visiting players COULD play inside Barclays. And Kyrie could play with his team, but ONLY if the Nets were out of town. And then, Kyrie Irving COULD enter Barclays as a spectator, but NOT as a player. The virus is or is not a problem, according to rules about certain people entering certain buildings. Got it?
So, it’s pretty stupid that Kyrie Irving can be inside Barclays as a spectator but not as a player, right? When pressed about the hypocrisy and downright absurdity of the vaccine mandates, Mayor Eric Adams lamented that he couldn’t bend the rules for Kyrie because “it would send the wrong message just to have an exception for one player when we’re telling countless numbers of New York City employees, “If you don’t follow the rules, you won’t be able to be employed.”
Got that? Being vaccinated isn’t about health. It’s about following rules.
But, it turns out that being an elite athlete who makes millions of dollars has its perks. Now, the rules WILL be bent for him and other unvaccinated NYC athletes (and performers). They can play at-home games now. But for all other workers, the vaccine mandates are still in effect, indefinitely.
Hear ye, hear ye! King Mayor Adams decrees that he “really wants that ring” so he will allow Kyrie Irving the privilege of playing his game! I say, unjabbed athletes may play now at the pleasure of the King, who is a big NY Nets fan! Be it known however, that the peasants must continue to abide by the King’s mandate! This exception is for multimillionaire athletes and entertainers only! Hear ye!
NYC has allowed a horrible (and dangerous) precedent to be set. Now, one person with power can stop millions of people from exercising their basic right to work for a living if they don’t follow his absurd, illogical, unscientific and inhumane rule. Your ability to work in NYC is now contingent on following an arbitrary rule (not a law), not voted on by anyone, put in place by someone who happens to be a mayor, who can have it apply whenever and to whomever he wants.
Kyrie Irving was very happy about playing home games again, but he did say this: “Any special privilege or exemption, I think there are a lot of people dealing with real consequences from being unvaccinated. I don’t think it’s talked about enough in terms of our essential workers and people on the front lines. It’s a whole community of us that really want to stand together.”
Consequences like job termination with no unemployment benefits and social ostracization, Kyrie? Can you be more specific, please, even though the truth sounds harsh? It would be so righteous if Kyrie really did stand with his fellow unvaccinated New Yorkers, and refused to play until the mandates were lifted for everyone and people got their jobs back. Somehow, I doubt that will happen.
As the new year began, many Canadians felt dissatisfaction with the government’s response to Covid (after 2 years) and wanted all government-imposed Covid restrictions and vaccine mandates to end. This was a reasonable position given the fact that in many countries, Covid is effectively “over” and restrictions are being lifted by the day.
Thus, the Canadian Trucker Convoy began to take shape, eventually becoming known as the Freedom Convoy. Thousands of Canadians assembled to peacefully protest and occupy Parliament Hill in Ottawa. This protest also became a catharsis of sorts. The tone was distinctly celebratory as people came back together to socialize normally after two years. Tables offering coffee and hot food popped up as people played music and danced in the freezing cold. Bouncy castles were erected for children.
In spite of all this, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not want to talk to the protesters in person, listen to their problems or figure out the way forward together. Turns out he’s more of a “my way or the highway” kind of guy.
Here is a bullet list of just some of the actions taken by Justin Trudeau (or by others as a result of his actions) against his own people:
Although the government-funded Canadian media refused to acknowledge it, there was widespread police violence against protesters. Police on horseback were caught on tape trampling two people including an elderly Mohawk woman with a walker.
Trudeau tried to get other Canadians on board with hating the protestors (and thus not caring what happens to them) by smearing them as white supremacists and racists when that was clearly not the case.
The Emergency Measures Act also empowered Trudeau to hurt protestors financially by freezing the bank accounts of those who contributed to the Convoy, even if they didn’t physically attend the protest. After Trudeau declared the Emergency Measures Act, contributing to the Convoy became retroactively illegal. For example, a single mother in British Columbia who donated $50 to the Convoy before the Act was declared, subsequently had her bank account frozen. This created such financial hardship for her, that her local MP stepped up to bring attention to her situation.
Convoy organizers were arrested and lead organizer Tamara Lich was in jail for 18 days because the judge wouldn’t grant her bail. After finally doing so, the judge said that a condition of Lich’s release is that she must not use social media or talk to other organizers. Someone Lich knows is supposed to “supervise her” and report her if she uses social media or converses with someone she’s not supposed to.
But why stop with freezing bank accounts? Why not have all money become virtual and thus 100% controllable by the government? China would like to do just that by creating a digital yuan, or DCEP (Digital Currency/Electronic Payments), and banning cash.
China’s social credit system is not actually a single, nationally coordinated system. Local and central governments all have the power to infringe upon a person’s liberty arbitrarily and without due process. The ability to use public transportation, have a certain job or borrow money are just a few examples of freedoms that can be removed if a person criticizes local or national officials or challenges their edicts.
The advent of a national digital currency dispensed by the Chinese government would allow it total financial control of the population. Government could instantly remove a person’s funds, or ability to make financial transactions, at will. The existing climate of political oppression would merge with financial authoritarianism. This article from the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains China’s plan for a national digital currency, and is worth reading to fully understand its implications. The article warns that the Chinese model of digital currency is a threat to global freedom, and should not be adopted by anyone.
But when the US and Canada talk about digitalizing currency it’s different. So don’t worry. Justin Trudeau invoked a wartime measure in order to financially punish those who disagreed with him while Joe Biden said nothing about it, so we’re good. I’m sure that digitalizing currency would have no negative unforeseen consequences, or threaten our privacy or freedom. And that the global Covid response has been totally legit. There’s no hidden agenda here. Carry on!
(For incisive and intelligent analysis of what’s been happening in Canada for the past two years, I highly recommend following this blog)
For two years, the experts’ dictums around masks have been contradictory, confusing and incorrect. Especially cloth masks.
First, we must begin with the fact that at the beginning of the pandemic, US surgeon general Jerome Adams specifically said not to wear masks. Any kind of mask. Even an N95 mask, which he said needs to be fitted properly and should only be used in a medical setting. Anthony Fauci also said mask-wearing by the general public was not necessary on 60 Minutes.
Then, the messaging changed and we were told to do the opposite. Cloth masks were celebrated and encouraged. Masks were deemed an essential tool to combat Covid. Masks became emblematic of the pandemic, always there to remind us (along with the news) that it was happening. This tool–a mask–was so important in the fight against Covid, that people were arrested for not using it.
The CDC gave some guidance on fabric type and fit on its website, meanwhile studies supporting cloth masks were flimsy at best. Perhaps knowing this, the CDC eventually recommended wearing two masks to improve the efficacy and fit of cloth masks about a YEAR AND A HALF into the pandemic.
Think about that. It took the best minds in science well over a year to figure out that cloth masks are so ineffective you should wear TWO of them.
But why didn’t they KNOW that already? There were several studies, dated PRIOR to the pandemic, asserting that cloth masks aren’t effective and shouldn’t be used. Heck, a 2015 study in the NIH’s National Library of Medicine stated 97% of respiratory viral particles penetrated the cloth masks and weren’t recommended for health care workers!
But the massive mixed messaging around cloth masks REALLY took off when epidemiologist and advisor to the Biden Administration, Michael Osterholm, went on CCN in August 2021 and dropped this bombshell:
In the video Osterholm says: “Many of the cloth face coverings people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out; either your breathing out or your breathing in. And in fact, if you’re in the Upper Midwest right now, those who are wearing their face cloth covering can tell you, they can smell all the smoke that we’re still getting. We need to talk about better masking.”
Excuse me? Sixteen months into the pandemic and this leader in Science who advises the president on all things Covid is JUST NOW discovering (even with the benefit of relevant studies available to him in government-owned libraries) that cloth masks are “not very effective”?
So, people wore cloth masks for over a year in good faith, believing they were effective protection against a deadly virus, and this guy comes along and blows that out of the water. But, no biggie! Nobody’s ticked off with the government and media approved experts about this fairly large error regarding a critical life-saving tool.
Even after her colleague on CNN said so, it took Dr. Leana Wen another few months to clearly state that cloth masks do nothing. Her actual words during a CNN interview in late December 2021 were, “Cloth masks are little more than facial decoration. There’s no place for them in light of Omicron. So wear a quality mask, at least a 3-ply surgical mask.”
Faced with this media hitjob on cloth masks, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky finally conceded on January 14, 2022 that that cloth masks aren’t that effective but “the best mask you can wear is the one you will wear.” Almost two years into this pandemic and now the recommendation is that it doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as you have something on your face.
You don’t saw a log with a butter knife. The type and quality of a tool needed for a job MATTERS. Especially when it comes to a tool so important in “the fight against Covid” that you can get arrested, or be publicly accused of killing people, for not using it. But the truth is, there STILL is not a consensus about mask usage–type, fit, fabric or even if they are necessary in the first place–and there never has been.
For every parent who insists all children be masked in school to protect others because there is no real risk to the child, there is another who cites an article stating that masking is detrimental to children. Meanwhile, many of the masks worn by children are…..cloth. Cloth masks that, according to one media-anointed expert, are mere “facial decoration.” Do we need to wonder why some people are losing patience with masks and would like them to be optional? And also why others are digging in their heels and want those masks to stay on?
At first, our trusted government and media experts said that they didn’t want people to wear masks. Then they said they DID want people to wear them, absent of any major study to justify the switch. Pro-mask studies and news articles flooded the internet AFTER they made the recommendation. This distinction is important. Why? Because the government suddenly told us to do something that they specifically told us NOT to do, BEFORE there was any “science” to justify their total 360.
The president says he wants to send N95 masks to Americans. But the CDC still presents cloth masks as a viable option and the prior US Surgeon General said N95s aren’t appropriate for the public either.
Are you seeing an insane-making pattern of contradictions here, or is it just me?
Contradictions like this are a wonderful way to sow fear, confusion and anger amongst the public. How about we all come off this battlefield and take a look at who is really causing societal harm in this country?
Entire vaccinated sports teams have been benched because they all tested positive for Sars-CoV2. For the past three months, the majority of those who died of Covid-19 in Vermont were fully vaccinated. 96% of Omicron cases in Germany are among fully vaccinated people. But the vaccine faithful don’t seem to feel ripped off in the slightest.
Properly terrified, many people eagerly awaited a vaccine for this virus so they could get back to “normal.” Presumably, normal would include not being afraid of Covid anymore, or the nation taking its first steps backwards toward a segregated society.
For a very long time, the public’s understanding of vaccination was “the injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in order to prevent the disease.” This was how the polio vaccine was made and it obviously worked great. Nobody gets polio anymore.
The definition was altered in 2015 to mean “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” (Immunity means the body resists infection.)
With this in mind, the public rightfully expected, and the government and federal agencies PROMISED, that the vaccine would prevent a person from getting infected with Sars-CoV2.
But the promise fell through. And in September 2021, the CDC’s changed its definition of a vaccine to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s response against diseases.”
So, if you get vaccinated, you are not immune to the virus. You can still get infected. Instead, you have injected a preparation that stimulates your body’s response to a disease. According to this study, increasing one’s intake of Vitamin D cuts the risk of Sars-CoV2 infection. This study says Zinc stops the replication of many viruses in the body and it looks like it does the same for Sars-CoV2. Ivermectin does a great job of stimulating the body’s response against Covid. There is actually a laundry list of “preparations” that meets this new definition of “vaccine.”
Now we can add boosters to that list because for the CDC, there’s nothing like more of what doesn’t work to fix a problem. Hooked on the promise of a better tomorrow, the vaccine faithful of NYC lined up for their boosters with no sense of outrage that the “normal” they were promised never materialized. It may never materialize. These New Yorkers are still afraid of Covid, embrace segregation and they can’t hold a job or have a normal life without being vaccinated.
Distressed Liberal 