By TEMPLE LI

A world without cattle.  But wait, why would we want a world without these bovines?  Cattle have been in our history for around 10,500 years.  That’s 10,500 years of cattle farts!

Apparently, all cattle are descended from animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East.  Cattle are an all-encompassing term for bovines, both males and females, including cows, bulls, steers, heifers, bullocks and calves.   Cows are bovine females that have had offspring and heifers are females that have not had claves.   Bulls are the males of the species and bullocks usually refer to young bulls. Steers are castrated bulls.

Dairy cows can produce more than 8 gallons of milk per day.  As a result, dairy cows supply us with not only milk, but other products—some good for us; some bad—including butter, cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, whey , condensed milk and ice cream.   Based on the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, toddlers should consume 2.5 daily servings of whole milk—not soy milk and not almond milk.

“Where’s the beef? “   Steers, heifers and bullocks produce beef of the highest quality and calves supply us with veal.  A serving of 3 ounces of lean beef provides 10% of the daily recommendation for protein, zinc, and Vitamin B12.  Beef production in the U.S. is a $200 billion industry with the average American consuming about 65 lbs. of beef per year,   But that’s just to satisfy our appetites.  In actuality over 98% of the beef bovine is used, with 45% as food.  The rest is an array of by-products, which include consumer goods from perfumes, detergents and shampoos, to athletic equipment, to gummy bears and pet food.

Cattle’s plethora of contributions to the health and well-being of society is apparently offset by their proclivity to excessive burping and farting,   If the Union of Concerned Scientists is to be believed, the methane gas they produce as a result of their flatulence , a gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, equals annual heating-trapping emissions of 24 million cars.

So, what to do?  Do we follow the direction of the proponents of the Green New Deal to eliminate all farting cows within 12 years or are there saner heads with more realistic solutions?  Scientists are currently working on a genetic fix which would lessen methane emissions, while contributing to cost efficiencies; improving the nutritional make-up of the forage in pastures and climate-friendly pasture management.

So for the milk drinkers and steak eaters of America—there still is hope as long as the Green New Deal remains aspirational and not operational!

Temple Li is the news editor for Empire State News, where she frequently authors her own editorials (just because she feels like it). She graduated at the top of her class at a mediocre college, infuriating her professors with her conservative wit and sultry charm. Empire State News allows Ms. Li to make a living, and to have a platform to tell people what she thinks. What could be better than that?

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By CANDY STALLWORTH

Along with other insane phenomena, such as stay-at-home orders, business restrictions, and mask mandates brought about by COVID-19 in 2020, virtual/hybrid learning for K-12 schools is has been ubiquitous throughout the nation (and many parts of the world) since mid-March.  At that time, COVID-19 was spreading rapidly, and state governments quickly jumped to shutdown orders that effectively closed every school, public and private, in their respective states. In nearly all K-12 school settings across the county, this was the end of in-person schooling for the 2019-20 school year, as almost no schools reopened and all schooling was completed online.

But now, it’s the 2020-21 school year, and schools across the country have been in session, in some form other, for a month or more. There is tremendous variation in what students are experiencing this year. Let’s take a look, shall we, at the oxymoronic concepts of virtual learning and hybrid learning.

Virtual learning refers to learning via online tools. Typically, students’ school day consists of participation in an online,  “virtual” meeting using their computer and webcam and interacting with the teacher and other classmates through a platform such as Zoom or Google Meet.  Along with this, they may complete online activities such as watching videos, completing documents, playing games on educational websites, and the like.

Hybrid learning refers to learning through both in-person instruction and virtual learning. Students who engage in hybrid learning attend school in person part of the time and use virtual learning the rest of the time. So they have some normalcy in that they get to attend school. But even the in-person learning experience is fraught with changes and mandates that make it very different from any previous school year.

Here’s a sampling of what virtual learning and hybrid learning look like for students at various schools:

Some students, whose schools have mandated fully virtual learning, sit in front of their computer screen ALL DAY. That is, from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., depending upon their schedule. They endure hour after hour of tiled faces on their screens, of the inevitable struggles to sustain their attention, and the likely technological failures that can pop up at any time.  They take a quick, half-hour lunch break (of course, eating lunch in their own homes) and if they are lucky enough to finish eating with a few minutes to spare, can take laps around the backyard (or the house) as “recess” before they settle in for their afternoon in front of the screen.

At the other end of the virtual learning spectrum are the students who briefly meet with their teacher for a few minutes online, usually at the beginning of the day and then perhaps, for some, at the end of the day. For the rest of the day, they are working on assignments and activities that are delivered to them through their online platform, such as Google Classroom. If they have adults or older siblings around them to guide them or at least periodically check on them, then they have a better chance of actually learning something. If not, they are on their own.

Students in hybrid learning situations face a cacophony of schedules and structures. All of the following are actual hybrid school schedules that are occurring this year:

• Students attend school in person every other day, for half a day. So one week, they attend Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The next week, they attend Tuesday and Thursday. The following week it is Monday, Wednesday, Friday again.
• Students attend school for two set days (either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday) for half a day. Each group attends every other Friday, so students attend either two or three days, depending on the week.
• Students attend school for five days one week, and the next week they are virtual all week. The following week, it’s back to school all week, and so on.
• Schools have A,B,C,D,E (or some group of letters) days, rather than Monday through Friday. The letter days that they attend school vary, depending on holidays and other scheduling variations. Some schools actually have letter days in combinations with the actual days of the week, so students must keep track of the days of the week in the real world and the days of the week in their school world, in order to know when to attend school.

While this is a sample of hybrid instruction scheduling, there are many more scenarios. In all of these virtual and hybrid learning settings, the amount of actual teaching and learning that occurs is significantly decreased. In education circles, it is commonly understood that students lost at least 30% of the expected learning in the last school year. It is too soon to tell how much they will lose this year, if the shutdown insanity continues.

Not to mention, the quality of the school experience is far less than normal for those who are in school. Children are confined to circles, or squares, or plexiglass-enclosed areas that are “socially distanced” (there’s another oxymoronic term) from one another. Lunch time and recess, two major times for interaction and social growth, are minimized or eliminated in most schools. Instruction in subjects outside the core subject areas, such as gym, art, and music, are also minimized or typically relegated to asynchronous or optional instruction.  Academic support services such as speech, reading support, and occupational therapy are hit or miss. IEP’s for students with identified learning needs may or may not be followed carefully.

And speaking of losing, everyone is the loser when children have anything less than five-day-a-week, fully in-person instruction. Teachers lose out because they are working extra hard; on any given day, they are planning for students who are in school for the day, students who will come to school on their next scheduled day, and in many cases, students who are fully virtual. Teachers who are compelled to teach all virtual must scramble to gain proficiency with online tools. Administrators have become hand sanitizing/mask-wearing police, while figuring out their schools’ air filtration system and turning their hallways into one-way walkways, and addressing a host of other issues, such as how to sanitize books and lab equipment, ensuring everyone’s technology is functioning well, and understanding legal/privacy ramifications of online schooling. Parents and family members lose out, when working adults must adjust their work schedules and work spaces to accommodate children who are learning from home, and when they must become their child’s tutor to reteach concepts their children did not grasp through a computer screen.

But children are losing the most. The social interaction that comes from school is crucial for their development. To be physically separate from their peers and teachers, to be compelled to wear a mask all day at school, to have to conform to one-way arrows in the hallway, to enter through separate entrances into their school building, or to be forced to stay home and learn online is to be denied basic childhood experiences. Children need school in its usual form.

The hysteria that has led to closing schools altogether or opening in some inadequate fashion is sorely misplaced. It is well-established as medical fact that the survival rate for children who test positive for COVID-19 is above 99.99%. Teachers’ and administrators’ ages vary, of course, but the COVID survival rates overall are similarly high. There is no need for the widespread shutdown of schools that the country is facing now. Normalcy in our country is long overdue. Getting students back into schools is a good place to start.

Candy Stallworth, an Empire State News staff writer, whipped her way through a doctoral education at the finest of American higher ed institutions, noting how unoriginal, inept, and annoying many of the schools’ professors were in their robotic attempts to maintain a politically correct narrative. BTW: she hates words like “narrative”, “optics”, and “gaffe.” Other than that, her turn-offs include non-masculine men, women who hate men, men who hate men, phonies, disloyal people, and overflowing garbage cans. She likes New England clam chowder better than Manhattan clam chowder, but prefers Manhattan to New England.

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By KENNETH DEL VECCHIO

Below are straight FACTS. These facts render only one conclusion: that widespread voter fraud existed in each contested state (PA, WI, MI, GA, NV and AZ), wherein there was far more than enough fraudulent votes in each of these states to definitively change the purported “certified” election results from Biden to Trump. Here it goes, using Nevada as an example (noting that each of the aforementioned other states has the exact same type of swing):

In Nevada, Joe Biden allegedly won the state by 33,596 votes, yet there were over 130,000 FACTUALLY fraudulent votes cast, as follows (of course, there were more, but these are undisputed by all parties):

*42,000 people voted twice

*1,500 dead people voted

*19,000 voters did not live in NV

*8,000 voters had a nonexistent address

*15,000 voters had a commercial or vacant address

*4,000 non-citizens voted

There is no legal – or commonsense – response regarding why these factually fraudulent votes do not, in and of themselves, overturn the election results. People ask: then why have supposedly 59 of 61 court cases brought on President Trump’s behalf been dismissed? The answer is one that is rooted in manipulation/false reporting and legal ignorance:

ALL of those cases were dismissed on procedural/technical grounds – and not on the basis of the review of evidence; in fact, in ALL of these cases, no evidence was reviewed at all. The courts punted, refusing to evaluate ANY numbers, stats, or substantive evidence at all. These courts dismissed the cases on legal technicalities such as “standing” or that other governmental bodies (such as election boards) had already purportedly made decisions regarding the vote tallies. Of course, as a matter of law, no “other governmental bodies” have the constitutional authority to make any decisions pertaining to the time, place and manner of a presidential election; that authority rests solely in the discretion of state legislatures (which is a separate, distinct legal reason why the election results must be invalidated in these six states).

Simply, the courts, to date, have refused to evaluate the evidence of fraud – and that’s a fact. Perhaps, the U.S. Supreme Court will select a case(s) to review the evidence, wherein it may overrule the alleged election results in favor of President Trump. Alternatively, the U.S. Supreme Court may leave that task (and corresponding decision-making process) to Congress and/or the state legislatures. All that said, the statistical facts do indeed exist—and they are now quickly being rolled out to the public through congressional and state legislative hearings.

Following is another very inconvenient, rather crappy FACT for the Biden-sters:

On Monday, a Michigan court released a previously suppressed expert report that uncovered that the 16 Dominion voting machines utilized in Antrim County had a 69% error rate, which translated into over 6,000 votes being switched from Trump to Biden; this, in turn, initially led to a purported “win” for Biden in that county. The machines were then confiscated, wherein it was revealed that this massive fraud had occurred. The report, which was drafted by former CIA, DHS and Secret Service officials, concludes that the machines were purposely designed to create such errors. If this sounds alarming, the below will sound even more alarming:

Upon these 16 machines (from just one county) being confiscated, on December 1 Michigan Democrat officials ordered that all 83 other county clerks delete all election data and software held on Dominion machines. Prior to that, when data from these machines had been sought, mysteriously, all Dominion logs in Michigan had been lost or scrubbed clean (since 11:04pm November 4, 2020). But Biden-bidders think people are idiots, telling people that they must believe that no illicit algorithms existed. Maybe, just maybe, where there are mushroom clouds of smoke, there is fire…As an aside, the legally acceptable error rate in voting machines is .0008%; thus, a 69% error rate is, well, astounding.

A few other facts:

Ninety percent (90%) of registered voters in Wisconsin supposedly voted in the 2020 presidential election. Ninety percent (90%), though not statistically impossible, is statistically implausible. The usual range in a presidential election is 50% to a very high of 70% voter turnout. In neighboring Ohio, for example, approximately 51% of registered voters cast ballots in this year’s election…Now, for what is statistically impossible:

In many city precincts, in the key battleground states, 200%, 300%, 400% – and greater – of registered voters cast ballots. Elementary school mathematics explains that 101% of people voting (or doing anything for that matter) is impossible because there is no such phenomenon as 101% of people, much less 500% of people. Accordingly, these voting irregularities constitute prima facie fraud.

Another mind-boggling set of numerical facts that might make one ponder a bit:

Hillary Clinton (in 2016) outperformed Joe Biden (in 2020) in nearly every city in the country – except Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Pittsburgh. These very rare Biden-municipalities, very ironically, are the big cities in the battleground states (the exact places he needed to win in order to be victorious in the election). Commonsense dictates that such fortuitous, surgically exacted results make absolutely no sense. It just so happens that voters in the oh-so-important cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Pittsburgh like Biden a lot more than Clinton – but nowhere else in the country? If that question is confusing, things do start becoming clearer, though, when one adds in factors like (1) a USPS truck driver was ordered to pick up over 100,000 ballots in New York and transport them to Pennsylvania and; (2) a video showing a scant crew of Democrat “ballot counters” in Atlanta pulling out suitcases filled with ballots in the middle of the night (after all the Republican election workers were sent home because of a “water main break” that never happened).

Oh, a few other FACTS:

Over 650,000 ballots were counted in Philadelphia without oversight by GOP poll watchers permitted; other battleground states’ urban areas had similar unlawful circumstances beset upon them.

Ballot signature verification was prohibited in multiple battleground states. In some states, oddly,  signature verification was required at in-person voting, but not for the mail-in ballots where signature verification is significantly more crucial…Calling upon all people with commonsense. Calling upon all people with commonsense. Calling upon all people with commonsense:

How easy would it be for people to commit fraud in states where ballots were – without the request of the voters – mailed en masse to EVERYONE? In voluminous circumstances, people received two, three, four, five and more ballots. Ballots, in massive amounts, were mailed to homes where people had long-since moved. Ballots, in great figures, were mailed to people who had, sadly, passed away. Ballots, in substantial numbers, were mailed to people who weren’t registered voters (including illegal immigrants). In multiple states, the ballots were stripped from the envelopes, with no envelope signature checked against the registered voters’ signatures. With no signature verification, it’s just plainly obvious that fraud can extremely easily occur. For, how do you know who sent in the ballot if the election worker has no credible, verifiable mechanism to verify who the ballot came from? And once the ballot is separated from the envelope, one can never again match them up.

Even in the states where signature verifications are required – and where the ballots actually must be requested – mail-in ballots can still be ripe for easy, successful fraud. This is the case where certain states have feigned “signature verification” requirements. It goes like this: (1) a phony voter, let’s say “Archie”, can request a mail-in ballot for a real registered voter, let’s say “Jeff”; (2) Archie signs off for the ballot, using Jeff’s name; (3) when Archie mails in the ballot, Archie signs the envelope, again with Jeff’s name; and (4) when the envelope and ballot arrive at the board of elections, the election worker looks to match “Jeff’s” signature on the ballot request document with “Jeff’s” signature on the envelope that carries the ballot. Of course, this process is worthless, as the fraudster (Archie) who signed Jeff’s name on the ballot request document is the same fraudster who signed the envelope carrying the ballot. If the goal of the signature verification was to prevent fraud, the rule (as it is in most states) is to match the signature on the envelope with the registered voter’s signature on his original voter registration documents. A thought to consider: why would Democrats want such a flawed system, where fraud can be so easily perpetrated?

Another thought to consider:

If one reads this article – and ignores, dismisses or otherwise denies the FACTS – still trying to argue that widespread election and voter fraud hasn’t occurred (to the level that the vote tallies in those battleground states should switch from Biden to Trump), what do you call those people? Archie?

Kenneth Del Vecchio is the author of some of the nation’s best-selling legal books, including a series of criminal codebooks published by Pearson Education/Prentice Hall and ALM/New Jersey & New York Law Journal Books. The legal editor and on-air legal analyst for Quick Hits News, Mr. Del Vecchio has appeared as a legal/political analyst on hundreds of shows on multiple other major news networks (Fox News, i24 News, Newsmax). Mr. Del Vecchio is also an acclaimed filmmaker who has written, produced and directed over 30 movies that star several Academy Award and Emmy winners and nominees. His films are distributed through industry leaders such as Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Cinedigm, and eOne Entertainment. He has starred in numerous movies, as well. A best-selling political thriller novelist, he penned his first published novel at only 24-years old. Additionally, Mr. Del Vecchio is the founder and chairman of Hoboken International Film Festival, called by FOX, Time Warner, and other major media “One of the 10 Biggest Film Festivals in the World.”  He also formerly served as the publisher and editorial page editor for a New Jersey daily newspaper. A former judge, Kenneth Del Vecchio is also a former prosecutor and, currently, a practicing criminal/commercial litigation attorney for 25 years, wherein he has tried over 400 cases; he is partner in the prestigious law firm, Stern, Kilcullen & Rufolo.  

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By CATHERINE MORTENSEN

When April Long, a 45-year old suburban mother in Detroit pays the family bills, she sets aside an extra $100 each month that she calls her “Trump cash.” That’s how much her family saves each month from the 2017 Trump tax cut.

“Trump has been a blessing to our family,” Long said. “Under Obama, our family struggled for many years. My husband lost his job. We couldn’t afford to buy a home. Those were tough times and I don’t want to go back to those days.”

Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised to repeal the Trump tax cuts if elected.

“My husband and I work hard to support ourselves and our son,” explained Long. “That extra Trump cash goes to savings. I don’t want Joe Biden taking that from us for pay for more of his big government programs.”

In elected, Biden plans to  roll back that tax cut and raise taxes to finance his socialist healthcare agenda. He’ll need to raise $2.25 trillion over the next decade to pay for it, according to an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That’s not counting the cost of lowering Medicare’s eligibility age to 60.

But Biden has repeatedly promised voters who earn under $400,000 that his tax hikes will not affect them. Narrowly speaking, that is true. However, according to the independent analysis of  the Penn Wharton Budget Model, those households would see lower investment returns and wages as a result of Biden’s corporate tax increases.

Economists at The Tax Foundation, agree. Board member and former head of the Congressional Budget Office Doug Holtz-Eakin recently pointed out, “it simply is not economically possible to segregate the impacts on the high-income from everyone else.”

That’s because the rich purchase items from others, some not as rich, and from businesses that employ workers across the income spectrum. The corporate tax falls partly on workers in the form of lower pay. Similarly, the individual income tax that is paid by pass-through businesses falls partly on employees of those businesses.

Senior policy analyst Garrett Watson of the Tax Foundation has written at length about the Biden-Harris campaign plan to eliminate deductible traditional contributions for 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and other types of retirement vehicles. The plan would instead provide a 26 percent refundable tax credit for each dollar contributed. As a result, this plan would reduce the tax benefit of traditional retirement accounts for those earning above $80,250.

The Biden-Harris campaign proposes multiple reforms to firearm regulation, including an expansion of the number of firearms subject to the National Firearms Act (NFA), which imposes a $200 tax on the registration of each NFA weapon. As a result, certain gun owners would see their tax liability rise, regardless of their income.

Analysts at the National Taxpayer’s Union warn that America’s middle class should be worried about a Biden presidency.  A recent study concluded, “any kind of tax plan intended to pay for a massive spending program like ‘Medicare for All’ or student loan forgiveness would have a hard time raising sufficient revenue without dramatically increasing taxes on middle-income households.”

Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning put a finer point on it, saying, “Joe Biden’s tax plan is going to ruin this country. The idea that he is going to only raise taxes on people who make over $400,000 is a complete fraud. The money is in the middle class.”

Biden often talks about eliminating Trump’s corporate tax cuts. Manning explained that those cuts resulted in a net drop to federal coffers of between $50-75 billion. “That’s not anywhere near enough money for Joe Biden to pay for all his government giveaways. The real money, as everyone knows, is always in the middle class. That is why big-spending politicians like Biden always end up taxing the middle class, either directly or indirectly.”

In addition, when politicians tax corporations, the corporations pass that along to the consumer. Governments don’t really tax corporations, they tax consumers.

“Biden will raise taxes on the middle class,” concluded Manning. “The very people who are struggling to make a living. He wants to raise taxes on somebody who is trying to save money so their kid can go to college or trying to figure out how to pay for their parents’ elderly care. There are so many people in the middle class, politicians can raise taxes by five seven percent and get a lot more money than raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.”

Biden is simply not telling the truth when he says his tax hikes would not affect households earning less than $400,000 a year.

Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government. You can read more of her articles at www.DailyTorch.com. 

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By CANDY STALLWORTH

If there ever was a story that epitomized the insanity over mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic, here it is. Recently, a woman attending a middle school football game in Logan, Ohio was handcuffed, tased, and arrested for not wearing a mask while she sat outside on the bleachers and watched the game.

Alecia Kitts, a parent from the visiting team of Marietta City Schools, was simply sitting maskless with her mother and attempting to watch her son’s football game when she was approached by the school’s assistant principal, who asked her to put on a mask or leave the game. She refused to do so, stating that she had asthma.  The school resource officer, Christopher Smith, quickly intervened and, according to cell phone video footage of the incident, physically struggled with Kitts, a woman who appears to weigh at least 100 lbs. less than him. Kitts resisted the burly officer’s attempts to physically remove her from the stands, proclaiming, “I’m not doing anything wrong”, “Get off of me,” and “What the f**k is wrong with you?” Her mother tried to assist by attempting to reason with both the officer and the assistant principal, who stood by watching the officer’s efforts to cuff Kitts.  Smith, evidently quickly frustrated with her, tased her to subdue her. Then he cuffed Kitts and proceeded to arrest her for trespassing.  The video of this event immediately went viral and angered many; indeed it is shocking (no pun intended) and disturbing on many levels.

ESN has detailed here the uselessness and even harmful effects of wearing masks. At the start of the pandemic, many well-meaning people did believe that masks were needed and complied with government mandates to wear them. But now, months later and with much research available for anyone to inform themselves, many more people have now caught on to the reality that they do absolutely nothing to stop the spread of COVID.  It is obvious that they are not needed in any setting, certainly not outside at a football stadium, with no one else immediately adjacent in any direction. It is pure insanity that Kitts was told to put on a mask or leave her son’s game.  What ensued next is appalling and downright scary. While BLM and Antifa protestors have been allowed, and encouraged, to gather en masse and protest, riot, and loot all over the country with or without masks, this woman was engaging in an everyday, law-abiding activity of watching a youth football game. She is the one got arrested, not the actual lawbreakers.

In response to the outcries and threats against Logan High School, the official word was that Kitts was not arrested because she was not wearing a mask, but because she refused to leave the stadium. Nonsense. She should not have even been asked to leave the game. Mask mandates are not about public health. They are all about control. This incident clearly demonstrates that reality.

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Candy Stallworth, an Empire State News staff writer, whipped her way through a doctoral education at the finest of American higher ed institutions, noting how unoriginal, inept, and annoying many of the schools’ professors were in their robotic attempts to maintain a politically correct narrative. BTW: she hates words like “narrative”, “optics”, and “gaffe.” Other than that, her turn-offs include non-masculine men, women who hate men, men who hate men, phonies, disloyal people, and overflowing garbage cans. She likes New England clam chowder better than Manhattan clam chowder, but prefers Manhattan to New England.

By DANIEL SONNINSHINE

Every holiday season welcomes movies that are inspirational and can bring joy to viewers. This holiday season is not only no exception, but can use divine motivation and exultation more than ever, given the hysteria that has beset the world over the last several months. Enter A Wrestling Christmas Miracle, a new, somewhat star-ladened film that does just that.

A thoughtful, very often funny holiday flick, A Wrestling Christmas Miracle is, at its core, a story of inspiration. There is inspiration through friendship. Inspiration through family. And, though not thrust in the audience’s face via preachy dialogue, inspiration through God. The movie’s synopsis provides a fine overview of the film:

An 11-year old phenom wrestler with an undefeated record, Kace Gabriel gives up the sport to write/direct a movie. He believes that if the film makes his best friend, Charlie, laugh on Christmas Day it will awake the boy from a coma. Kace’s dad, Ajax Gabriel, an Olympian wrestler with a mysterious side career, supports his son’s wish, cautioning that the friend may never come out of his slumber. A week before Christmas, the movie is produced – with Ajax and a zany cast of characters starring in it – ready to make all laugh. Ajax departs to Africa, where he headlines The Christmas Coup in the Congo, a wrestling tournament that has him scheduled to return on Christmas, just in time for the movie presentation to Charlie. Instead of all going as planned, however, the sole hard drive containing the movie is stolen by disgruntled, bumbling actors. And The Christmas Coup in the Congo turns out to be a real coup with the overthrow of the country’s communist dictator – and with Ajax being right in the center of it all. Kace and his mother, unable to get in touch with Ajax in the Congo, go on a crazy cat and mouse game in trying to retrieve the movie hard drive that is being held for ransom. What ensues is an inspirational, funny thrill ride, with twist after twist – and a climatic, unexpected ending that could only happen on Christmas. 

 As promised, A Wrestling Christmas Miracle does indeed deliver an inspirational ending, though the audience may be able to figure it out. Viewers, however, likely will not see the twist in the climatic scene coming.  The movie is indeed rather humorous; it could fairly be described as extremely funny several times throughout. The writing is smart, in that it is a comedy that will resonate with both adults and children alike. It’s a family film, but, more so, it’s a Christmas movie. In that regard, the movie produces the required emotion to make people smile – and happy – during the holiday season or any time of the year. Its motivational moments are strong. The writing, in its sum total, warrants an “A” grade, as it quite perfectly mixes comedy with mystery, and skillfully intertwines a “movie within the movie” aspect, something which often fails in films that try to carry out such a complicated endeavor; the audience is never confused with what’s happening.

The director, Chris T. Anthony – who also tripled-up as the film’s cinematographer and editor – very capably technically led the production ship as a first-time helmer. In dealing with the visual hardship of explaining how the movie’s patriarch, Olympian Ajax Gabriel, has victoriously wrestled an elephant, giraffe and the Congo dictator (as he orchestrated a CIA-style overthrow of that dictator), Anthony cleverly designed a series of moving radio shots, that transferred from character to character. His efforts compensated for the lack video footage, allowing for the information to not only be understood, but to also be entertaining. Well directed actors, likewise, assisted in efficaciously completing this task.

Like nearly all independent movies (and all movies altogether, for that matter), however, A Wrestling Christmas Miracle has a few flaws, namely insufficient production funds to show much of anything that occurs in the aforementioned “The Christmas Coup in the Congo” part of the film. In other words, there is no battle footage or any scenes in The Congo at all; instead, we hear about it through radio reports (as described above), TV reports, and dialogue among characters who are in America. But, alas, this does not matter much in the overall evaluation of the film, since the production is otherwise a stalwart, most notably through its actors.

Ingenious are the performances of the two villains, Chuck played by Buddy Fitzpatrick (American Criminal) and Ms. Kitty Kat played Julie McCullough (“Growing Pains”). Fitzpatrick, who co-wrote the movie with producer Kenneth Del Vecchio (The Life Zone; The Great Fight), is brilliant as the “brilliant” mastermind behind the theft of the “movie within the movie’s” hard drive. In many ways, he is reminiscent of Gene Hackman’s “Lex Luthor” in Superman. He is no dummy; rather, he is mad intelligent. He has a chip on his shoulder, and despises his nemesis; in A Wrestling Christmas Miracle, it’s Ajax Gabriel (played by co-writer Del Vecchio). But can Chuck actually defeat Ajax and, more so, Ajax’s superstar son Kace? Well, like any true comic book-style villain, Chuck thinks so—and Fitzpatrick flawlessly delivers. He is wicked, yet somehow has a smidgeon of likeability. In the scene where Chuck and Kitty Kat steal the hard-drive (and all of Kace’s Christmas presents), clad in Grinch costuming, the viewer feels like he/she is actually watching Dr. Seuss’s the Grinch in observing Fitzpatrick’s measured performance. A simple sly smile by Fitzpatrick later in the movie so effortlessly says “The Grinch”, which is the act of a truly outstanding actor.

The comedic timing between the pair of Fitzpatrick and his on-screen partner in crime, McCollough, is just right. McCullough is equal parts “Ms. Teschmacher” (Valerie Perrine) and “Otis” (Ned Beatty), Lex Luther’s sidekicks. She is bumbling, vibrant, and so sillily funny in her portrayal of Kitty Kat. McCullough ensures that she evens out Chuck, so the pair, in their totality are not villains who you are rooting for, but you enjoy the ride with them.

Candy Fox as Cassandra Gabriel is charming, witty, a bit sassy, and strong in playing the film’s only “straight guy” (though she’s clearly the pretty mom/wife). Scott Schwartz (The Toy; A Christmas Story) – the kid who got his tongue stuck on the pole in the latter Christmas classic – is formidable in an amusing performance as the out-of-synch uncle. Schwartz and Fox work well together as the opposing tandem to Fitzpatrick/McCullough in the cat and mouse efforts over the stolen movie hard drive.

Fitzpatrick, McCullough – and multiple other actors from the primary A Wrestling Christmas Miracle storyline – double as actors in the “movie within the movie”, making the totality of their performances  more substantive and impressive, while allowing the “movie within the movie” to seamlessly blend into the overall film. Additional key players in the “movie within the movie” include some recognizable names, all of whom are quite funny: Martin Kove (“Cobra Kai”; The Karate Kid), Gilbert Gottfried (Emmy nominee; Problem Child), Jimmie Walker (Golden Globe nominee; “Good Times”), Michael Winslow (Police Academy; Spaceballs), and Todd Bridges (“Different Strokes”; “Everybody Hates Chris”). Joe Bronzi, playing a multi-personality movie sales agent, and Suzi Lorraine, playing Charlie’s quirky mother, provide additional laugh-out-loud moments in the film.

While Chuck and Kitty Kat serve as the potential foils, the Gabriels are at the center of A Wrestling Christmas Miracle. But how couldn’t they be? They’re a family of Olympians, almost above the fray of reality – but still real and believable in their astonishing physical and mental facilities. The actors playing Kace and Ajax Gabriel, in real-life, have rather amazing backgrounds, and they bring those aptitudes to their roles.

A real-life nationally ranked youth wrestler, Mario Del Vecchio (who placed second in Alabama’s Deep South Nationals tournament in July of this year), expertly plays the lead role of Kace Gabriel. Also an experienced child actor who has acted in over 10 films alongside multiple Oscar and Emmy nominees, including playing the lead in last year’s companion film, A Karate Christmas Miracle, Del Vecchio delivers in high gear in both thespian and athletic abilities, in successfully pulling off this role. Co-star Julie McCullough said in an article in New Jersey’s daily newspaper, The Record, that Del Vecchio is “a little girl’s dream”, matching an assessment of  many that he is a strikingly handsome young man. More so, his true wrestling bonafides instantly render him wholly believable in this role. The film’s trailer exhibits his superior wrestling skills, as well as numerous clips in the movie; Del Vecchio has won and placed in numerous tournaments over multiple states.

A straight-A student who also is a real-life standout football player, Del Vecchio is a QB sack machine, as seen here. Equally important, Del Vecchio is poignant in his character’s intensity and strength to not only write/direct a film (the movie within the movie) to roust his best friend out of a coma, but in the family’s search to retrieve the movie’s stolen hard drive. In A Wrestling Christmas Miracle, 12-year-old (at the time of the movie’s production 11-year-old) Mario Del Vecchio beats away the difficulty of playing a role that requires multiple skills, and provides the requisite highly-talented performance needed of a child actor to make a family Christmas movie a success. He makes this movie work.

Real-life father Kenneth Del Vecchio delivers a proficient performance as Ajax Gabriel. His “movie within the movie” role of “Agent Truman”, though, is what really stands out. A reprise of Del Vecchio’s critically acclaimed role in the crazy horror-comedy cult film Scavenger Killers, Del Vecchio tones Agent Truman down to Christmas movie status, letting loose some of the funniest moments in the movie via his ego-maniac, mute, wheel-chair bound government agent character. His sign language delivery is gut-busting funny, this time verbally through “Agent Sheridan” (Oriana D’Agostino), played in the same, poised matter-of-fact, dark humor skill as her Scavenger Killers predecessor, “Agent Templeton” (Kim Allen).

The elder Del Vecchio also shows off some of his own real-life physical strength prowess, in exacting a rough-house arm drag upon Fitzpatrick, crippling his on-screen archenemy into a perfect wrestling cradle. A former high school wrestler himself, Del Vecchio has been much more recognized for his aberrational weightlifting abilities. At one point, he was in the top five in the nation in bench press for his weight class; he has won over 50 bench press competitions, at his best lifting 450 pounds while weighing just 170 pounds. See it here. And see it here. The younger Del Vecchio, Mario, also is quite the physical strength specimen. Watch him here.

Not far off from his brash “Agent Truman” character, in the real world, adversaries of Del Vecchio have called him bombastic, hard, argumentative, overly masculine, and yes – an ego maniac. However, it seems many others have complimentary words for him.

Legendary actor Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas; Nixon) called Del Vecchio “an extraordinary man.” Two-time Academy Award nominee Charles Durning (Tootsie; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) exclaimed that “Kenneth Del Vecchio is an excellent filmmaker and would make a great leader!” Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts (The Expendables; The Pope of Greenwich Village) stated that “Kenneth Del Vecchio is the only judge I ever agreed with in personal conversation. He’s got some great views about freedom and liberty…and he’s a little bit nuts!” TV star Joyce DeWitt (”Three’s Company”) declared that Del Vecchio has “a vision and concept based on excellence and integrity.” Academy Award nominee Robert Loggia (Scarface; Big) said of Del Vecchio: “The man is honest. Hard-working. Talented. And oh so intelligent.”

A veteran writer/director/producer of over 30 movies distributed through majors such as Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, and Eone Entertainmnet, Del Vecchio is also a best-selling author of legal books (Pearson Education/Prentice Hall and ALM), best-selling novelist (wrote first novel as a law student),  TV legal analyst (Quick Hits News, Fox News, i24 News) who has also published for ESN, attorney who has tried hundreds of cases, former judge, and the founder/chairman of Hoboken International Film Festival, called by Fox and other major media “one of the 10 biggest film festivals in the world.”

The combined unique accomplishments between real-life father and son Kenneth Del Vecchio and Mario Del Vecchio have culminated in them being called a modern-day “Renaissance Man” and “Renaissance Boy” by this media outlet and multiple others. The combined accomplishments of their performances through their movie characters, Ajax Gabriel/Agent Truman and Kace Gabriel – in concert with the great performances of the other notable actors in this movie, as well as the film’s writing and directing – has resulted in A Wrestling Christmas Miracle being called a critical winner. This film is a must see for families, Christmas and holiday film fans, wrestling enthusiasts, and those who enjoy inspirational films – not to mention, those who just like a good comedy.

A Wrestling Christmas Miracle, distributed by Green Apple Entertainment, can be watched on demand on many cable networks, as well as on Amazon Prime Video and several other VOD platforms.

Daniel Sonninshine is an Empire State News staff writer, who is in search of greatness. A 20-something smart fellow, he is now lifting weights in an effort to obtain more power. If that doesn’t work, he will ask to write more editorials for Empire State News and less fact articles. He also dabbles in film reviews. Favorite flicks include The Godfather, Blazing Saddles, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, It’s a Wonderful Life, and The Passion of the Christ.

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By KENNETH DEL VECCHIO

The 2020 presidential election has been the most irregular election in the history of the United States. Arguably, some very clever, fanciful evildoers have extrapolated mega-hysteria from a disease equivalent to the flu, as the centerpiece of an illicit plot to rig the results in favor of Joe Biden. Without the manipulative usage of the coronavirus fearmongering, the election would have occurred in its usual, longstanding manner: the vast majority of the voting happening in-person at polling stations. Instead, scores of people were frightened, via devilish trickery, into believing that it was dangerous to vote in person – because of the coronavirus. This farce has led to an extraordinary list of problems that is calling into legitimate question the efficacy and credibility of America’s voting processes.

It is unsound, if not completely silly, to blindly accept that the vote counting has been an honest process. Indeed, it is patriotic to inquire, investigate, and initiate lawsuits to determine if fraud has been perpetrated against the voters; the evidence, no doubt, is bountiful in showing that there has been massive fraud, in numerous different manners, in the vote-taking and vote counting. Although many may not understand it – and some of the tricksters are trying to downplay and/or delegitimize it – this factual evidence, along with square legal issues, will be evaluated in the courts. As this process proceeds, many lower courts will be hearing arguments, but, ultimately, it will be the nation’s highest court, the United States Supreme Court, who will be deciding the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Much to the dismay of the Democrats and their entrenched allies (the mainstream media, big tech, Hollywood, the deep state, and the so-called academic elites), President Trump will most likely succeed.

The trend in the ballot counting has been highly troubling and alarming—and it raises several valid legal and evidentiary questions. President Trump initially had a very sizable lead in multiple key states (WI, MI, PA, GA), with a substantial percentage of the votes counted. Then, suddenly, the vote counting went dark; it, literally, stopped wherein either very little votes (or no votes at all) were counted for quite some time. Miraculously, after the deafening silence in vote counting, there was an enormous shift in the vote tallies, with Biden emerging as the leader.

The liberal pundits have openly, if not gleefully, stated the root cause of this strange trend: it is because of the purported “mail-in” ballots, which have skewed heavily in favor of Biden. The Democrats shouldn’t be so excited about this phenomenon, however, given that it showers their candidate with numerous legal pitfalls which, in the aggregate, may be insurmountable. An array of facts demonstrate that voter fraud was weaponized and executed through the exploitation of the mail-in voting system. Here are some salient factual problems with the mail-in voting system that, shortly, will be under review by the U.S. Supreme Court:

Mail-in ballots, in massive bulk numbers, that suddenly just arose, with no indication of their origins.

Mail-in ballots where, at certain points, Democrat officials have announced that there are (way) more than originally thought.

Mail-in ballots, in huge batches, that somehow all go to one candidate (e.g., 138,000 to Biden and zero to Trump) which is, of course, statistically impossible.

Mail-in ballots where, en masse, Republican poll watchers have been forbidden to oversee their counting.

Mail-in ballots with unverifiable signatures.

Mail-in ballots that have no post marks or indiscernible post marks.

Mail-in ballots, in great numbers, from deceased people or those who no longer live in the state.

Mail-in ballots, in large batches, that are attributed to the wrong candidate by faulty software.

Mail-in ballots, in significant groups, that arrive after Election Day.

Mail-in ballots accumulated from postal workers who were ordered to back date them, so they would erroneously appear to have been timely submitted.

Mail-in ballots, in the millions, that list only a vote for Biden (and no other candidates.

Mail-in ballots, in monstrous figures, that are fraudulent on their face because they are missing the necessary water mark.

Mail-in ballots, in such giant amounts, that have triggered a state’s voter turnout to appear to be either greater than the actual number of registered voters in the state (or extremely close to the number of registered voters), which is, of course, statistically impossible.

Mail-in ballots – in huge, incalculable numbers – where it cannot be determined where they came from (once they are removed from their arrival envelopes, they are impossible to track – who knows if they ever came in envelopes in the first place).

In short, mail-in ballots present voluminous opportunities for mega-fraud, as is quickly unfolding – and the same is supported by substantial evidence. This all renders one important result: the “calling” of the election by the Democrat operatives and their cohorts, at least at this stage, is completely meaningless. Joe Biden, currently, is indeed not the President-Elect; he is still just a candidate. The U.S. Supreme Court, in due course, will be determining this election’s fate.

The Court will evaluate all the above-described evidence of voter fraud. The justices of that highest court will also resolve straight legal issues. For example, it is quite likely that all Pennsylvania ballots received after 8:00pm on election night will be disallowed. This is because the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court acted in violation of the U.S. Constitution when it erroneously ruled that the state could accept ballots for three days after the election. This is actually a simple legal issue:

That state court erred because the U.S. Constitution unambiguously and unequivocally only permits state legislatures – and not state courts – to enact, void, or modify voting laws within their states. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for some inexplicable reason, bypassed the Pennsylvania State Legislature and unilaterally overturned the legislature’s longstanding law that ballots, to be valid and counted, must be received no later than 8:00pm on election night; the Pennsylvania court unlawfully extended that deadline for three additional days. With the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court being constitutional contextualists (i.e., they follow the law as is defined in the U.S. Constitution), this unconstitutional Pennsylvania court action will almost definitely be struck down. If so, this means that (1) all ballots that were received in Pennsylvania after 8:00pm on election night will be discounted and void; and (2) Pennsylvania will shift from the Biden win column to the Trump win column, if the number of late votes is large enough.

It should be noted that even if the tally of late votes doesn’t, in and of itself, offset the difference between the Biden vote total and the Trump vote total, it is very likely that this issue – combined with one or more of the other instances of voter fraud as defined earlier – will turn the Pennsylvania victory to Trump. Similarly, one or multiple acts of voter fraud in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and/or Arizona may very well result in Trump wins in some or all of those states. Certainly, there is no guarantee which states’ cases the U.S. Supreme Court will hear (there are so many to choose from), much less how the justices will rule, but with the overwhelming factual evidence mounting – coupled with square, identifiable legal issues – the U. S. Supreme Court will be delivering decisions that ultimately will be determining who is the victor of the 2020 election. And, already, President Trump, by any commonsense, rational evidentiary and legal analysis, is the favorite. Although the numbers propounded by these varied Democrat-controlled states show Biden as the “winner”, these numbers appear to have fruited through human/computer error and several avenues of voter fraud (unlawful acts that, arguably, were part of a well orchestrated plot to rig this election in favor of Joe Biden).

Kenneth Del Vecchio is the author of some of the nation’s best-selling legal books, including a series of criminal codebooks published by Pearson Education/Prentice Hall and ALM/New Jersey & New York Law Journal Books. He is a former judge, a former prosecutor and a practicing criminal/commercial litigation attorney for 25 years, wherein he has tried over 400 cases; he is partner in the prestigious law firm, Stern, Kilcullen & Rufolo.  Mr. Del Vecchio is also an acclaimed filmmaker who has written, produced and directed over 30 movies that star several Academy Award and Emmy winners and nominees. His films are distributed through industry leaders such as Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Cinedigm, and eOne Entertainment. He has starred in numerous movies, as well. A best-selling political thriller novelist, he penned his first published novel at only 24-years old. Additionally, Mr. Del Vecchio is the founder and chairman of Hoboken International Film Festival, called by FOX, Time Warner, and other major media “One of the 10 Biggest Film Festivals in the World.”  A regular legal and political  analyst on the major news networks (Newsmax, Fox News, i24 News) who has appeared on hundreds of shows, Mr. Del Vecchio formerly served as the publisher and editorial page editor for a New Jersey daily newspaper. 

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