Dec. 26, 2021 - Epoch Times
18:57
| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Good evening. | |
| Over in California, ever since Gavin Newsom won the recall election, he has begun to implement his agenda. | |
| And along that line, four days ago, he signed a new bill into law which officially bans gas-powered engines on things like lawnmowers as well as chainsaws. | |
| Meanwhile, over in New York City, thousands of unvaccinated teachers have officially been placed on unpaid leave. | |
| However, the city says that these teachers can actually keep their health benefits for another year as long as they sign a waiver saying that they won't sue the city for firing them. | |
| Meanwhile, over in the state of Vermont, they are experiencing a surge in COVID cases despite being one of the most vaccinated states in the entire nation. | |
| And then likewise, also in the state of Vermont, two new bills have just become law which officially grant non-US citizens the right to vote in government elections. | |
| And then lastly, over in the state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has officially issued the first fine for a county which broke the ban on vaccine mandates. | |
| And that fine, by the way, it's pretty hefty. | |
| It's to the tune of $3.57 million. | |
| Let's go through it all together. | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| Now let's begin today's discussion over in California. | |
| After the recent recall election over in California, which saw Governor Gavin Newsom secure his position and essentially receive a mandate to push forward his agenda, well, that's exactly what he's been doing. | |
| And along that line, four days ago, in an effort to bring California closer to not relying on fossil fuels at all, Gavin Newsom signed into law a new bill which bans all off-road gas-powered engines. | |
| Which, of course, includes things like lawnmowers as well as chainsaws. | |
| Meaning that if you live in the state of California and you have a lawnmower that runs on gas, well, you have until January 1st of 2024 to sell it to your friends over in Nevada, because you won't be allowed to use it after that date. | |
| Now, this bill actually just served as one of the many steps of California's so-called comeback plan, Which, according to Gavin Newsom, includes a strong focus on climate change initiatives. | |
| In fact, in explaining his decision about this new ban on gas-powered off-road engines, here's what Gavin Newsom said in a statement. | |
| In a time when the state and country are more divided than ever, this legislative session reminds us what we can accomplish together. | |
| To tackle the state's most persistent challenges, together we took action to address those challenges head-on, implementing historic legislation and the California Comeback Plan to hit fast forward on our state's recovery. | |
| Now, naturally enough, not everyone was as gung-ho as Mr. | |
| Newsome about this new law. | |
| For instance, Mr. | |
| Andrew Bray, who is an official with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, he came out and said that for landscapers to change all of their commercial-grade equipment to zero-emission equipment will be far too expensive. | |
| Here's specifically what he said. | |
| These companies are going to have to completely retrofit their entire workshops to be able to handle this massive change in voltage, so they're going to be charged every day. | |
| He further said that besides the additional cost, this new law could result in other unexpected problems for landscapers as well, such as people needing to carry charged batteries from job to job. | |
| Here's what he said. | |
| A three-person landscaping crew will need to carry 30 to 40 fully charged batteries to power its equipment during a full day's work. | |
| Now in total, according to an analysis that was done by the Washington Examiner, this new law over in California, it will affect 50,000 small businesses across the entire state. | |
| And so again, if you live in the state of California, I would recommend that you tell Little Billy to start a lemonade stand rather than a lawn mowing business. | |
| Also, by the way, it's worth noting that this new law is not the only recent announcement made by Governor Gavin Newsom regarding gas-powered engines. | |
| In fact, just last month, in the month of September, Mr. Newsom signed an executive order in order to ban both gas-powered as well as diesel-powered cars in the state of California by the year 2035. | |
| Here was a statement that was released by Governor Newsom when he signed that executive order. | |
| This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change. | |
| For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. | |
| And so, we'll just have to wait and see whether this will have the intended effect of improving air quality or whether it will ruin the state's economy. | |
| Because if you think that a few landscapers who have to retrofit their entire equipment base In order to comply with the new law is financially burdensome, well, consider having every resident in the state of California need to buy a new electric vehicle. | |
| So only time will tell how all of this will play out. | |
| If you'd like to read more about this new law out in California, I'll throw the link to that into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And now let's move on over to New York City. | |
| According to the United Federation of Teachers, which is the largest teachers union in the entire city, thousands of unvaccinated New York City teachers have been placed on unpaid leave after the city's vaccine mandate went into effect. | |
| Now, during a news conference, the president of the union said that approximately 97% of the teachers, as well as the other staff members who are represented by this union, have gotten the vaccine. | |
| And so what that means is that out of the 121,000 workers who are represented by this union, he said that under 4,000 of them were missing from the city schools as of Monday, when the vaccine mandate went into effect. | |
| So that means that approximately 4,000 teachers, as well as other school staff members, they are now unemployed. | |
| However, that president, the president of the union, he also said that if any of these individuals decide to change their minds and get the vaccine, they can be reinstated immediately. | |
| Now, in terms of the thinking behind this mandate, well, here's what Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a recent press conference on Monday when this vaccine mandate went into effect. | |
| Every adult in our schools is now vaccinated. | |
| That's going to be the rule going forward. | |
| That's the way to keep kids safe. | |
| 95% of all full-time Department of Education employees are vaccinated By the way, just as an interesting aside, I was doing some research over the last few days about vaccination data, and I found something that was quite interesting. | |
| When you break down who is actually vaccinated in America, when you break down the vaccination status of Americans by political affiliation, you'll see that 92% of Democrats are vaccinated, while only 56% of Republicans are. | |
| And so, mandates like the one here in New York City, which will force out teachers who are not vaccinated, well, it might actually have the effect of getting rid of the remaining Republicans as well as conservatives who are still left in these institutions. | |
| Now, by the way, I'm not saying that that's the intended effect, but just something I thought was worth mentioning. | |
| Now, in terms of the unvaccinated teachers, besides being placed on unpaid leave, there is also another stipulation that they have to abide by. | |
| And that is, in order to keep their health benefits for another year, they must give up their right to sue the city over the vaccine mandate. | |
| Let me just repeat that. | |
| Unvaccinated teachers who have already been placed on unpaid leave, they can only keep their health benefits if they sign a waiver saying that they won't sue the city for firing them. | |
| This condition, by the way, was the result of arbitration that was done by the United Federation of Teachers. | |
| That's the large teachers union we mentioned. | |
| And when the stipulation came out, the union, they touted it as a victory, since they said that it forced the city government to acknowledge medical and religious exemptions to vaccination. | |
| Now, we reached out to the union for comment on this great victory of theirs, but we have yet to hear back. | |
| Regardless, if you would like to read more about what's happening over in New York City schools, I'll throw a link to those articles into the description box below this video. | |
| And again, all I ask in return is that if you haven't already, take a quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm, which, by the way, forces the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people. | |
| Letting the truth be known far and wide. | |
| And now, before we move on over and discuss how non-citizens in the state of Vermont are now allowed to vote in the government elections there, I'd like to take a quick moment and introduce our sponsor for today's episode. | |
| That's right, Roman. | |
| The sponsor of today's episode is an awesome company called American Hartford Gold. | |
| As I'm sure you're aware, the rate of inflation right now in this country is accelerating like crazy. | |
| I mean, everything from the cost of lumber, cars, houses, food, gas, everything is increasing at an accelerated pace. | |
| However, in my opinion, what the most amazing aspect of the system is, is that you can take this money, which I actually think is as fake as monopoly money because the Fed and the Treasury just print this out of nothing, And you can use it to buy real money from American Hartford Gold, which is gold and silver coinage. | |
| Take a look. | |
| This is a box that I get every single month from American Hartford Gold sent to me because I believe it's a great hedge against inflation. | |
| This is something that has had value for 5,000 years. | |
| It's had value across the world in Russia, China, America, India. | |
| I mean, this is the real stuff right here. | |
| This is a beautiful, actually, Canadian maple. | |
| And this right here is some silver coinage. | |
| I don't know if you can see how shiny and beautiful it is. | |
| Yeah, but I just get these every single month because I believe that unfortunately the US dollar will eventually fall as the global reserve currency, as sad as that is. | |
| And I just want to hedge against those people in Washington, D.C. continuously printing our prosperity into oblivion. | |
| I would highly recommend that you do the same. | |
| Go on over to the website for American Heart for Gold and consider doing business with them. | |
| They're an awesome company. | |
| They sponsor a program like ours, so they obviously care about the truth getting out there, but they also have an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. | |
| They have a great customer support staff when you call them. | |
| They're super friendly, and they make the entire process super simple because not only can you get these packages here delivered directly to your doorstep, but you can call them up and set it up so that you can actually get Gold and silver directly deposited into your IRA account, again making it all super simple. | |
| And right now they're offering a special to viewers of Facts Matter, where depending on how much you buy, how much gold and silver you buy, they will throw in $1,500 worth of free silver on your first order. | |
| So give them a call at 866-242-2352 or text Roman to 65532. | |
| Also, I'll throw a link to their website down in the description box below. | |
| And American Heart for Gold, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode. | |
| Now, Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| And now let's move on over to Vermont. | |
| Now, you might not know this, but Vermont has the highest vaccination rate of any state in the nation. | |
| So while the national average in the entire U.S. is about 56% vaccinated, Over in Vermont, more than 69% of their population is fully vaccinated against COVID. Let me just repeat that. | |
| Vermont, which is the state with the highest vaccination rate in the entire country, they are having a record-breaking surge of COVID. And so when you look at the number of cases in Vermont, they're at a record level. | |
| When you look at the number of hospitalizations, they are close to the records that were seen last winter. | |
| And sadly, the state of Vermont has recorded the deadliest day as well as the deadliest month of the pandemic in the month of September. | |
| Here's what one government official who monitors the state's COVID statistics said in a very succinct statement. | |
| I think it's clearly frustrating for all of us. | |
| Furthermore, it's not just Vermont. | |
| The four states that follow Vermont in terms of the highest vaccination rates in the country, well, they are also experiencing a rise in COVID cases. | |
| For instance, the head of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health, which is the largest health system in central Massachusetts, he recently said that the regional hospitals in Massachusetts were seeing nearly 20 times more COVID patients than they did in June. | |
| He also said that there's not enough ICU beds to spare. | |
| Although, by the way, when he said that, we didn't actually get a chance to go there and see whether that's the case. | |
| And frankly, claims of ICU beds being filled to the brim have, in the past at least, turned out to be incorrect. | |
| So, you know, take that for what it's worth. | |
| Furthermore, this comes at a time when hospital systems across the entire country are firing massive amounts of healthcare workers for being unvaccinated, and so it's unclear whether that has any impact on the backlog. | |
| Regardless, that was over in Massachusetts, which for your reference, by the way, has the fifth highest vaccination rate in the entire nation. | |
| Likewise, over in Maine, which is the third most vaccinated state, they also saw a surge in the pandemic in terms of their ICU cases. | |
| An official there said that nearly 90 people were in intensive care on September the 22nd. | |
| Although, again, those statistics are very hard to gauge and would actually have to go into the state and look at each case one by one to see what's really happening there. | |
| Regardless, though, the overall picture that's developing is that states with very high rates of vaccination are starting to see signs of a surge in the virus. | |
| Now, what does that exactly mean? | |
| And how does that square away with Joe Biden's recent announcement that he wants to have 95% of America's population vaccinated? | |
| Well, I don't know. | |
| We'll just have to wait and see. | |
| I just report to you the facts, and then you can make up your own mind as to what you think about them. | |
| If you'd like to read more about what's happening with the virus cases over in these states, I'll throw a link to that into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| However, while we're discussing the state of Vermont, there's something else that is worth discussing. | |
| And that is, in two cities within the state of Vermont, non-citizens are now allowed to vote in local government elections. | |
| Let me just repeat that. | |
| In two cities within the state of Vermont, non-U.S. citizens, non-American citizens, will now be allowed to vote in government elections. | |
| And just for your reference, those two cities are Montpelier and Winniski. | |
| And the way that this all played out was that back in June of this year, in June of 2021, two bills passed the state legislature which would have allowed non-citizens to vote in these two cities. | |
| However, when they reached the desk of the governor of Vermont, Mr. | |
| Phil Scott, he's a Republican, well, he vetoed these two bills. | |
| However, he vetoed them not because he didn't agree with them, but rather because he thought that if non-citizens would be allowed to vote, it shouldn't just be in a few cities, rather it should be throughout the entire state. | |
| Here's what he said in a statement when he vetoed these two bills. | |
| This is an important policy discussion that deserves further consideration and debate. | |
| I understand these charter changes are well intentioned, but I asked the legislature to revisit the issue of non-citizen voting in a more comprehensive manner However, the Vermont legislature, they actually voted to overturn his veto with a two-thirds majority, meaning that the laws have now officially gone into effect. | |
| And non-citizens can vote in elections, at least in these two cities in the state of Vermont. | |
| Specifically, non-citizens who are legal residents of Montepelier and Wuniski can now vote in municipal elections. | |
| In particular, H-177 will allow non-citizen legal residents to vote in city government elections in Montepelier, while H-227 will allow non-citizen legal residents to vote in both city government and school district elections. | |
| If you'd like to read more about these new voting changes over in the state of Vermont, I'll throw the link to that article into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And once again, if you haven't already, all I ask in return is that you take a quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And now let's move on over to Florida. | |
| In yesterday's episode, we discussed how the state of Texas officially banned vaccine mandates. | |
| And after hearing that, a lot of people were wondering what that type of regulation would actually look like in practice. | |
| And interestingly, we don't have to guess. | |
| Because we have Florida as an example. | |
| If you remember, back in May of this year, May of 2021, the state of Florida instituted a new law which officially banned vaccine mandates throughout the entire state. | |
| In fact, here's what Governor Ron DeSantis said when he signed that bill into law. | |
| One, I'm vaccinated. | |
| I am offended that someone would make me show something just to go to a restaurant or just to live life. | |
| My view is we got to protect people's ability to live their lives. | |
| I don't want a biomedical security state in which we are constantly having to do this just to be able to live everyday life. | |
| However, Florida's Leon County, which is where the city of Tallahassee is located, they decided that they won't comply. | |
| In fact, despite the threats from the state, Mr. | |
| Vice Long, who is the Leon County Administrator, We're good to go. | |
| According to the official notice that they actually sent to the county, this number, $3.57 million, it came as a result of 714 violations, each one being a $5,000 fine. | |
| In fact, here is specifically what Governor Ron DeSantis said in a statement regarding this new fine. | |
| It is unacceptable that Leon County violated Florida law, infringed on current and former employees' medical privacy, and fired loyal public servants because of their personal health decisions. | |
| We will continue fighting for Floridians' rights, and the Florida Department of Health will continue to enforce the law. | |
| We're going to stand up for Floridians' jobs, stand up for Floridians' livelihoods, and stand up for freedom. | |
| On the flip side, however, Mr. | |
| Vice Long, he said that he disagrees with these fines and he will be fighting them in court. | |
| Here's what he said in a competing statement. | |
| And so, we'll have to see what the courts ultimately will decide in this matter. | |
| And this is a very important case, because it will set at least a precedent within Florida, but that other states can look to as well. | |
| And as states like Texas, as well as Nebraska and Arkansas are beginning to push back against vaccine mandates as well, well, this is going to be a very important precedent. | |
| And it'll have ramifications well into the future of our country for the next year, definitely two years, and likely into the next decade. | |
| If you'd like to read more about what's happening over in Florida, I'll throw a link to that article into the description box below this video so you can check it out for yourself. | |
| Now lastly, since you've completed this episode of Facts Matter, I would highly, highly recommend That you go on over to Epic TV and check out an awesome episode of American Thought Leaders, where Yan sat down with a woman who actually lived through the Cultural Revolution, and she talks about what she's seeing happening in America now from her perspective, again, having lived through Mao's Cultural Revolution. | |
| Check out the trailer for that awesome episode. | |
| They just chanted Mao's slogan, Rebellion is justified. | |
| Mao said, Revolution is not dinner party. | |
| It is violent. | |
| What can history tell us about America's current cultural moment? | |
| You are born white, then you are oppressive. | |
| You are born guilty. | |
| In this episode, I sit down with Xi Van Fleet, a Virginia mom who made headlines after publicly comparing the rise of critical race theory to China's cultural revolution, which she experienced firsthand. | |
| The result of the Cultural Revolution is the total destruction of the society. | |
| This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. | |
| Now, if you want to check out that phenomenal episode, as well as all the other great content over on Epic TV, I'll throw a link to it. | |
| It'll be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you click on it. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| I hope you subscribe. | |
| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful, beautiful world through honest journalism that is based in truth and tradition. | |
| Now, lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed. | |
| While YouTube still allows it. | |
| Also consider hitting that notification bell so you can actually be notified of any new videos as we release them. | |
| And lastly, if you have an Instagram account, consider following me at EpicTimesRoman. | |
| I publish behind-the-scenes research as well as spicy memes. | |
| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. |
Export Selection