I recently ran across a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer that lays out four racist words and phrases that should be banished from the English language. It begins like this:

Steel yourself, brave reader, here they are:

Peanut gallery
Eenie meenie miney moe
Gyp
No can do

The same grammarian who authored the piece had previously confronted the "deeply racist connotation" of the word "thug," noting that president Donald Trump "wasn't the least bit bashful" when calling Minneapolis rioters "thugs" in a tweet, despite the word's obvious bigoted history. In 2015, President Barack Obama referred to Baltimore rioters as "thugs" as well. He likely did so because "thug" — defined as a "violent person, especially a criminal" — is a good way to describe rioters. It's true that not everyone in a riot engages in wanton violent criminality. Some participants are merely "looters" — defined as "people who steal goods during a riot." That word is also allegedly imbued with racist conations, according to the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and others.

Attempting to dictate what words we can use is another way to exert power over how we think. Few people, rightly, would have a problem with referring to the Charlottesville Nazis as "thugs." Only the "protester" who tears down a Ulysses S. Grant statue or participates in an Antifa riot is spared the indignity of being properly defined.

Here lies an anonymous statement from an A&E consultant in a major hospital in Surrey, in relation to the criminal gagging of all levels of NHS staff, who have been threatened that they will lose their jobs if the speak out about the COVID-1984 scamdemic.

"I am a consultant at a major , regional hospital in Surrey. By major you can take that to indicate that we have an A&E department. I had agreed to give an interview to an anti lockdown activist in which I would have revealed my identity. I have since changed my mind and only feel able to give an anonymous statement. I have changed my mind simply because that all staff , no matter what grade, at all hospitals have been warned that if they give any media interviews at all or make any statements to either the Main Stream Press or smaller, independent press /social media we may, immediately be suspended without pay. I have a family, dependents and I simply cant do it to them. I therefore can not reveal my identity at this time but wish to state as follows:

In my opinion, and that of many of my colleagues, there has been no Covid Pandemic, certainly not in the Surrey region and I have heard from other colleagues this picture is the same throughout the country. Our hospital would normally expect to see around 350,000 out patients a year. Around 95,000 patients are admitted to hospital in a normal year and we would expect to see around a similar figure, perhaps 100,000 patients pass through our A&E department. In the months from March to June (inclusive) we would normally expect to see 100,000 out patients, around 30,000 patients admitted to hospital and perhaps 30,000 pass through A&E. This year (and these figures are almost impossible to get hold of) we are over 95% down on all those numbers. In effect, the hospital has been pretty much empty for that entire period.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested over the weekend that the crime surge in New York City is likely because struggling residents are forced to shoplift in order to "feed their child."

In a virtual town hall meeting she hosted Thursday, some clips of which were shared by The Hill, the 30-year-old Democratic congresswoman was asked about the troubling uptick in violent crimes overtaking the city.

"Do we think this has to do with the fact that there's record unemployment in the United States right now?" she responded. "The fact that people are at a level of economic desperation that we have not seen since the Great Recession?"

"Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren't paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent and so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don't have money," Ocasio-Cortez continued, "so they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry."

California Governor Gavin Newsom has kicked off a storm of criticism with a new statewide shutdown order, mandating that bars and restaurants, among other businesses, halt indoor operations amid a surge in coronavirus infections.

Announced at a press conference on Monday, the new order requires that bars across California shut down altogether, while restaurants, movie theaters, zoos, museums and a number of other establishments must suspend all business activities indoors. In a number of counties on the state's "monitoring list," gyms, places of worship, salons, malls and other facilities deemed non-critical have also been forced to close down under the new rule.

"We've made this point on multiple occasions and that is, we're moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order," Newsom told reporters on Monday in explaining the mandate, adding that Covid-19 "continues to be a deadly disease."

An electric fence has been erected at a pub bar to ensure people keep socially distanced from one another.

Staff at The Star Inn in St Just were struggling to keep punters under control following their recent reopening.

Rather than continuing their attempts at herding the proverbial cats, they have erected an electric fence, Devon Live reported.

Star Inn landlord Johnny McFadden confirmed that the fence was placed there to enforce social distancing.

At least 73 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus at a farm in Herefordshire in the UK, according to local media.

A S Green and Co, based in Mathon near Malvern, says 73 of its 200 employees have COVID-19 following an outbreak there.

Its workers, mainly responsible for picking and packing vegetables, are now asked to isolate in mobile homes on site.

Says defunding the police would lead to lawlessness

Holding homemade signs, a crowd has gathered in downtown L.A. nearly every Wednesday for two and a half years, screaming a familiar chant.

"Jackie Lacey must go! Jackie Lacey will go!"

Their mission has intensified in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting nationwide protests. But unlike other Black Lives Matter targets -- including police brutality often at the hands of White officers -- their aim is on Los Angeles County's first Black and female district attorney, a homegrown prosecutor raised in South L.A.

Migrants in the United States sent about $103 billion in mostly untaxed remittances to six foreign countries last year — including about $19 billion to China.

A World Bank report, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, reveals the extent to which foreign nationals living in the U.S. drain mostly untaxed money from the nation's economy to send to relatives overseas.

In 2019, migrants sent close to $40 billion to Mexico and nearly $20 billion to China. Only one state in the U.S., Oklahoma, taxes remittances. Last year, the state raked in more than $13 million from its one percent remittance tax.

Migrants in the U.S. also sent about $14 billion to India, another $14 billion to the Philippines, $10 billion to Guatemala, and $9 billion to Vietnam — almost all of which is untaxed.

CNN's Jake Tapper was confronted with coverage from his own show claiming masks were "not needed" during the Covid-19 pandemic, after he tweeted Donald Trump may have saved lives if he'd worn them in public months ago.

"Some day someone will do a study on how many lives might have been saved if this happened in February or March," Tapper tweeted, reacting to the president being pictured for the first time wearing a mask.

Shaming citizens for refusing to wear masks in public - despite many states and businesses requiring them - has become commonplace on social media, but in "February or March," health officials were claiming they were "not needed" and insisting Americans not go out and buy them.

Chief Exec. Carrie Lam has said that a coordinated effort by democrats to win a majority in the legislature in order to oppose government policy may be illegal under the national security law.

Lam was asked on Monday for her reaction to the pro-democracy camp's primary election over the weekend, which saw a high turnout of over 600,000 citizens. At a press conference, she warned that people must not "interfere, disrupt [or] cause confusion" in the run-up to the legislative election in November:

"If this so-called primary election's purpose is to achieve the ultimately goal of... rejecting to, resisting every policy initiative of the Hong Kong SAR government, then it may fall into the category of subverting the state power, which is now one of the four types offences under the new national security law."

Lam added she was only issuing a warning, but there may be a case to answer.