There have long been fears that this sort of discrimination was on the horizon, as the willingly unvaccinated become second-class citizens right here in the United States. With only about half of the US population fully vaccinated, (and largely by their own accord), herd immunity looks to be some time away yet.  Nearly 20% more of the population will need to wind up with COVID antibodies in order for public health officials to consider the pandemic to be waning, and a maximum pressure campaign is taking shape throughout a number of levels of government. During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Dr. Frances Collins used his position as the Director of the National Institutes of Health to pressure businesses around the nation to enact strict vaccine-proof restrictions. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “Some businesses are going a step further and requiring proof of vaccinations not just for employees, but even for customers in some cases. Audience members for broadway plays and musicals need to be vaccinated. Some bars in San Francisco and D.C. are requiring proof of vaccinations. Do you think as a public health measure it would be good for more businesses to require vaccine credentials in order to have vaccinated customers?” His answer was astonishing. Collins said, “As a public health person who wants to see this pandemic end, yes. I think anything we can do to encourage reluctant folks to get vaccinated because they’ll want to be part of these public events, that’s a good thing. I’m delighted to see employers like Disney and Walmart coming out and asking their staff to be vaccinated. I’m glad to see the president has said all federal employees. I oversee NIH. With 40,000 people need to get vaccinated or if they’re not to get regular testing which is inconvenient. All of…

There are concerns that the barons of the Information Revolution, much like the barons of the Industrial Revolution, are exploiting their content producers at an unsustainable clip, and creating a very dangerous bottleneck in the world of free speech. Given just how much of the internet’s traffic flows through just a few sites, it is imperative that we keep a keen eye on what platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are doing.  They are the new gatekeepers of nearly the entire breadth of current information, and if they were to choose to keep us in the dark on any particular issue, it would be quite easy for them to do so. That’s why the latest news from YouTube is so terrifying. YouTube said Sunday it had barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for one week, citing concerns about Covid-19 misinformation. The move comes after a review of posts uploaded by the Rupert Murdoch-owned TV channel, which has a substantial online presence. “We have clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies… to prevent the spread of Covid-19 misinformation that could cause real-world harm,” a YouTube statement said. With 1.86 million YouTube subscribers, the channel — which is owned by a subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corp — has a conservative following well beyond Australia. The mainstream media and the mainstream social networks haven’t always gotten their COVD info right, either, which makes their declarations regarding “misinformation” all the more laughable. Early on in the pandemic, these platforms pushed back against the possibility that the virus itself may have been a part of some sort of lab leak, even going so far as to censor any such discussion.  Over a year later, and as health experts began to suggest this yes, this was truly a possibility, the premature nature of…