Al Perrotta is off today for a much-needed rest.

Are you feeling Christmasy yet? I hope not. Because there’s a certain Christian season called “Advent,” which is meant to echo Lent, and whet our appetites for the coming of the Savior by reminding us how much we need Him. Check out my old classic column (first written a decade ago) on how to really celebrate Advent by embracing your inner curmudgeon.

It would take a real Ebenezer to want to punish good U.S. servicemen for making their own medical choices about an experimental vaccine. But since we’re apparently governed by Scrooge and Marley, that’s exactly what the Biden Dept. of Defense went and did. And now those courageous servicemen are going to court, the Epoch Times reports. Their lawsuits

filed in recent months, argue that when Congress compelled the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to rescind its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, lawmakers carefully chose their wording.

“Congress expressly chose the term ‘rescind’, rather than more customary language such as ‘repeal’, ‘amend’, or ‘clarify’, to direct the DoD and the courts that the rescission should be applied retroactively,” one states.a

To support their argument, lawyers pointed to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s Jan. 10 memorandum, in which the retired general rescinded the mandate and ordered military leaders to remove adverse actions pertaining to vaccine refusal from the records of members still serving.

Mr. Austin also said that former members could lodge petitions to request corrections to their records.

“Secretary Austin acknowledged the Congressional directive to apply the Rescission retroactively by, among other things, committing to correct all of the paperwork and adverse personnel actions resulting from non-compliance with the now voided mandate and orders issued pursuant to it,” one of the suits states.

A spokesman for the litigants

estimated that, if the suits are successful, then billions of dollars would go to former members.

He noted that the money was already appropriated by Congress for pay and other compensation before the military discharged more than 8,000 personnel for refusing to receive a vaccine.

Tens of thousands of National Guard personnel, meanwhile, were denied pay for being deemed out of compliance with the mandate.

All three class-action suits were filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Former members interested in joining the suits can go to militarybackpay.com.

Our prayers go with those aggrieved Americans seeking their just redress.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Exposes New Pharma-Industrial Complex

While we’re speaking of the medical abuse of power, it’s worth highlighting the latest work by liberal Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who’s running third-party for president. He writes in an op-ed at Armed Forces Press that President Eisenhower

had recognized that America could not be both a democracy at home and an imperial power abroad. But to justify its existence, that cartel would drum up endless wars and emergencies that ensured its own wealth and power while transforming America from an exemplary democracy into a national security state abroad and surveillance state at home.

Seven years later, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health, where he would never face combat. There he began a fifty-year sojourn that would put him at the summit of the nation’s scientific and technological elite, an apex that he would use to militarize and monetize medical research and to consolidate the seamless alliance between government, science, the military and intelligence agencies, and private contractors in ways that would consummate President Eisenhower’s worst nightmares about the threat this cartel posed to democracy.

The cartel would reach its apogee in 2022. As the COVID pandemic commenced, the rising medical technocracy — with Anthony Fauci at the helm — took on all the menacing features President Eisenhower warned against.

A powerful syndicate, composed of government public health technocrats, a rapacious pharmaceutical industry, military and intelligence officials, and media and social media titans, appropriated awesome new powers to override constitutional and civil rights, censor information, suppress dissent, and engineer compliance with arbitrary diktats.

These mandates culminated in mass submission to inoculation with risky, ineffective, shoddily tested, and unlicensed vaccines. And no one is liable for any damage they cause.

No Air Marshals Will Protect Christmas Travelers—They’re Too Busy Chasing J6 Suspects

As you board those flights to go visit family for Christmas, maybe say some extra prayers for protection. You’ll need them, because the U.S. government doesn’t have your back. It redirected air marshals away from protecting U.S. air travel from terrorists, to free those agents up to investigate everyone who traveled to Washington, D.C. around January 6, 2021. And also to help process the millions of illegal aliens Biden has decided to wave into our country. So Sonya LaBosco, the Director of the Air Marshal National Council told Fox News, as Gateway Pundit reports:

In a recent interview with FOX News, Sonya LaBosco, the director of the Air Marshal National Council, dropped a bombshell revelation about the current situation of US air security. According to her, in the current conditions, regular commercial flights will not be serviced by air marshals.

LaBosco explained that the air marshals have been reassigned for the past two years under the Biden regime. They’re either stationed at the border dealing with illegal immigration or tracking individuals linked to the January 6, 2021 events, irrespective of their involvement in any criminal activities.

This revelation comes at a time when TSA is projected to screen a record 30 million passengers during the Thanksgiving period. Despite this, air marshals continue to be stationed down at the border, focusing on administrative work rather than ensuring air security.

The Bugs Are Already in Your Ketchup

It sounds crazy to say it, but in addition to forcing us all to have fewer children, take risky vaccines, and drive electric cars made by child laborers in Africa, our global elites are intent on getting us all to eat bugs. But why? Allegedly to reduce the impact of meat agriculture on the Climate. And those elites aren’t waiting for us to cave in and agree. They’re sneaking it into our food to get us used to, the Georgia Record reports:

For some time Americans have heard Klaus Schwab and his band of Globalistas touting the benefits of eating insects.

Efforts to confirm if they are including insects on the canapé trays during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos Conference have been unsuccessful.

Many Americans presume that unless you choose a bag-of-bugs at your grocer you won’t be eating any…that may be a faulty assumption.

Quietly, some food producers have begun including powdered crickets in their food products, apparently with FDA acceptance.

Known as Acheta Powder, ground up hoppers may be found in various products like energy bars, protein shakes, and baked goods like cookies, muffins, and bread.

Consumers who prefer to skip the crickets need to read the ingredients on the foods they buy and look carefully for Acheta or Acheta powder to be listed.

So read those lists of ingredients on every product label. While you’re at it, look out for Xylitol, a natural sweetener in many “organic” products that’s deadly poison to dogs and cats.

Was Napoleon France’s Obama?

One of the blockbuster “holiday season” releases out in the theater is Ridley’s Scott’s Napoleon. Despite mixed reviews, it looks like a ripping yarn. But it’s worth thinking more deeply about who that French emperor really was and what he represented. In a thoughtful commentary Ryan McMaken argues that Napoleon was a destructive egalitarian demagogue — akin in his day to our own “president for life” Barack Obama. Food for thought alongside your popcorn.

Along The Stream

Curious what your family members in school are learning about our country and its history? You should be. It’s shaping and mis-shaping their worldviews, and could imperil their souls, warns history pundit Jarrett Stepman.

And don’t miss my own “Peppermint Latte Argument for the Existence of God” out later this morning.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”