Tag: coronavirus

Democrats Ban White Farmers From Federal COVID Relief Program

Last week, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. The bill, comprised of $1.9 trillion in the name of “COVID relief,” received no support from Republicans in the House or Senate, and it’s not hard to see why.

The legislation includes carveouts for dozens of leftist priorities, including a bridge in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York and a tunnel in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Silicon Valley. These items clearly have nothing to do with pandemic relief for the millions of Americans out of work or the businesses shuttered by blue state governors’ harsh public health regulations. To the hardworking Americans everywhere, this bill should reek of the far-left’s desire to shove their ill-conceived policy priorities wherever they can stash them.

What most don’t know about this bill, however, is the small provision known as “Section 1005” that authorizes the secretary of agriculture to make payments of 100 to 120 percent of the “outstanding indebtedness of socially disadvantaged farmers.” Under this provision, those included in the socially disadvantaged category are American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Asians, Blacks, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics.

Putting aside all of the Washington jargon that makes little sense outside of a committee hearing room, this provision—specifically written into the American Rescue Plan by Democrats—pushes a blurred vision of so-called “social equity” by providing relief for farmers based on the color of their skin. Rather than offering much needed relief to all farmers, Sec. 1005 prioritizes race, just as it would ethnicity, sex, or any other factor.

It bears repeating: Sec. 1005 focuses debt relief on farmers based on their race, not based on how harshly the pandemic has affected them—the very reason for relief in the first place. Ironically, this racial discrimination is the very focus of what officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have worked so hard to combat.

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Oregon Health Officials Propose Making Mask Mandates Permanent

Oregon state health officials unveiled a new proposal in January which seeks to make temporary mask mandates permanent.

The current order, passed in November by the state’s workplace safety department, which requires all employers to implement state-imposed guidelines for social distancing and mask compliance, is set to expire on May 4. Oregon health bureaucrats are now seeking to make the rules permanent.

“Although the rule must be adopted as a permanent rule, its purpose is to address the COVID-19 pandemic,” the proposal reads. “Oregon [Occupational Safety and Health] intends to repeal the rule when it is no longer necessary to address the pandemic.”

No threshold for what constitutes when the mandate is “no longer necessary” however, is offered in the proposal.

New COVID cases in Oregon meanwhile, are averaging less than half what they were when the temporary order came into effect last fall. The state saw 769 new cases with a seven-day average of 603 positive tests the day to order was announced on Nov. 6 as they began to rise going into the Thanksgiving holiday.

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Coroner Calls for Audit As People Who Recovered 9 Months Ago Counted as COVID Deaths

 Monroe County Coroner Bob Hill is making waves in his home state of Illinois this week after he examined a portion of the list of possible COVID-19 deaths. What he found was utterly shocking and has led to calls for an audit of COVID-19 deaths in his state.

According to the Center Square, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed 19,893 deaths through the end of February in Illinois where COVID-19 was listed among multiple causes. Of those deaths, about 1,830, or 9.2%, had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death.

That percentage is higher than it was in September 2020 when the rate was about 6%.

However, Hill calls these numbers into question after reviewing many of the cases, finding that people who died from clearly non-COVID-19 issues are being counted as dying from COVID-19.

“My concern is, I’ve reviewed several cases, (of 100 cases) about ten of them here in Monroe County, that the state has deemed COVID-related deaths and none of them have had underlying conditions or contributing factors to COVID,” Hill said. “So my concern is no matter when the person was tested positive, the state is automatically giving them a death classification as related to COVID.”

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Biden Bashes People Who Are Disinclined to Get the Vaccine, Suggests They Aren’t Patriots

“I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about, “I’m not gonna get the vaccine. I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it,”‘ Biden said during the interview with Stephanopoulos. ‘Well, why don’t you be a patriot? Protect other people.”

He doesn’t understand the concept of freedom, really? Yes, Joe Biden, people have the freedom not to get the vaccine if they don’t want it. If you don’t understand that, you’re missing a rather critical part of being an American. There are people on both sides of the aisle who are not inclined to get the vaccine, that’s up to them and Biden really is the last one who should be questioning anyone’s patriotism.

Maybe, speaking of patriotism, he should demonstrate a little of it, by showing concern over releasing illegal aliens who have the virus into the country, as he has reportedly been doing? As Fox’s Peter Doocy explained during a press briefing exchange with Jen Psaki last week, 9% of those released in the Brownsville area, 204 people, were released into the country with the virus. Maybe that could be just a bit problematic? And it’s completely inconsistent with the narrative he’s pushing on the virus.

Seems that’s more concerning than that some folks might decide that for a variety of reasons they might not take the vaccine.

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