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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: Student expelled for not getting COVID booster, despite proof the booster for her was medically risky

Diamond
Diamond “Ellie” Puentes, blacklisted because she believes
in “her body, her choice!”

They’re coming for you next: A student at Union College in New York, Diamond “Ellie” Puentes, was expelled from school because she refused to get a COVID booster because of the serious adverse effects she experienced after getting her second COVID shot.

More information here.

Worse, the school refused to accept her doctor’s note requesting she be exempt, or her hospital records describing the health issues she had experienced. From the first link above:

Union College’s Director of Health Services Angela Stefanatos asked her, “Are you here because you don’t want to get the booster or because you’re truly sick?”

Dr. Thomas Nelson, Puentes’ primary care physician, wrote a letter addressed to the college on April 11 regarding his patient’s concerns with the booster shot. He stated that Puentes was “in an unfavorable state of health, presumably caused by the vaccine itself.”

In response to Nelson’s advice that the vaccine was “ill-advised,” Stefanatos stated via email that “the vaccine is not associated with gastritis,” according to copies of the email discussion obtained by the Thinker.

Stefanatos of course was wrong. Pfizer itself has confirmed to Puentes that its shots have produced gastritis in patients.

No matter. Puentes had the nerve to merely question these petty dictators, and for that crime they banned her from the school. The second link above also notes that about fifty other students at Union are fighting its COVID shot mandates.

What makes it clear that this is solely a power play by Union College goons is the ample evidence that now exists proving the COVID shots and boosters do practically nothing to prevent the disease. To require them and to kick people out of school for not getting them is nothing more than being an irrational bully and a thug.

Nor is the school the only blacklister here.

A friend of Puentes started a fundraiser on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe on April 28 to help Puentes raise money for “proper legal assistance” and to replace the nonrefundable tuition that she lost for the spring term, according to the description of the fundraiser.

GoFundMe paused donations without explanation, causing the fundraiser to move to a Christian platform called GiveSendGo. [emphasis mine]

As always, the worst part of this story is that it is no longer rare. This is happening everywhere. It has now become acceptable to discriminate against people for their personal medical decisions, even if the evidence makes it clear that those decisions are rational and reasonable. The irrational fear of the Wuhan flu trumps all.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

13 comments

  • Bob Wilson

    According to their website, Union College is outrageously expensive “Union’s comprehensive fee, which includes tuition, room, board, and mandatory fees, is $76,857 for the 2021-2022 academic year.” On top of that, you have to pay for books and other miscellaneous expenses. I think they are doing her a favor by getting her to leave. Ms Puentes should look for a much lower cost effective way to educate herself.

  • Max

    She may even qualify under the new rules as mentally ill, domestic terrorist…
    The free American public is now the enemy.

    “Today, I issued Executive Orders to devote substantial resources and focus toward combating the troubling surge in domestic terrorism by identifying radicalized individuals and tracking their threats amplified on social media, and further empower State Police to keep guns away from dangerous people.”

    Are you a dangerous person? (Antifa, BLM, woke progressives and pro abortion activists are exempt)

    “The second Executive Order will require State Police to file for an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) under New York State’s Red Flag Law whenever they have probable cause to believe that an individual is a threat to themselves or others.”

    Not being fully vaccinated could be considered probable cause and subject to arrest… Be careful not to trigger a Karen!
    https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/brian-kavanagh/governor-hochul-announces-support-comprehensive-package

  • Micha Elyi

    Hey Robert Zimmerman, please avoid trying to tell your readers what our opinions should be. Just lay out the facts without peppering them perjoratives. Trust your readers’ rational judgment.

  • Jeff Wright

    Abolish the Department of Education.

  • Man in the Middle

    Sounds like she’s going to need better options, probably including getting out of blue states that push COVID-19 vaccinations regardless of side effects. She might consider spending a gap year serving someplace willing to have her do so without a booster, while she finds an attorney to get her money back and figure out how and where to live.

  • SDN

    Mr Elyi, there’s a 100% cure for what ails you: Start your own blog and write your opinions there.

  • I Callahan

    Micha Elyi,

    That’s exactly what Robert did. Sorry the reality of all of this goes against your narrative.

  • TomJB

    Hey Micha Elyi, please send that sort of request to CNN or other outlets claiming to be straight journalists and see where it gets you. This is a blog; writers here are under no obligation of pure objectivity.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “It has now become acceptable to discriminate against people for their personal medical decisions, even if the evidence makes it clear that those decisions are rational and reasonable. The irrational fear of the Wuhan flu trumps all.

    Ah, the benefits of government-run healthcare. If you disagree with the government, you don’t get the healthcare. Or the education. Or any other government services. Obey, comply, do or die.

    Micha Elyi gives us an example of our new (although paused) government-run Ministry of Truth. Agree or shut up.

  • Alton

    I was Going to add to the Education of One Said……Micha Elyi,

    But the readers have done a Bang Up Job!

    Thanks Guys !!!

    So as a Male…….
    I will now go and schedule MY.

    Abortion!

    Good Day to All!

  • Ryan Lawson

    Covid just ripped through my department. Double vaccinated, double vaccinated and boostered… it didn’t matter. Just about everyone got it (9 out of 12 people) . A double vaccinated and boostered manager infected a few other double vaccinated and boostered people while he was asymptomatic. He sat in a small meeting room with them for an hour, confident that because he was double vaccinated and boostered that he was immune and would not catch or spread the already burgenoning outbreak in the building. Hubris, giant fracking hubris. He now claims, well if he weren’t vaccinated and boostered he would have gotten sicker, despite the fact he and the other boostered people got as sick as the unboostered.

    Utter refusal to admit they were wrong about the efficacy of the vaccine and booster. Up next, utter refusal to admit they were wrong about the safety profiles of these vaccines. Being connected to the medical world as I am, I know that is coming now beyond all certainty.

  • Ryan Lawson: If you are ruled by fear it means you are ruled by emotion, which means you are not ruled by thought. To admit you were wrong requires the ability to think about these things instead of reacting to them emotionally.

    People no longer know how to do this. We are in a dark age. Expect worse things.

  • Ryan Lawson

    I hope it isn’t the dark ages, but if so, hopefully I will find my way to the modern equivalent of Byzantium. But, with the way things are going that could end up being the Muskian Mars colony…

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