Biden's vaccine mandate put on hold, judge cites "grave statutory and constitutional" issues with mandate.

 

Joe Biden. Reuters.

Biden's vaccine mandate has been put on hold by a 5th circuit court judge citing "grave statutory and constitutional" issues with the order. Reuters. Biden had said the rule would go into effect on January 4th, which would require vaccination for all employers with 100 or more employees, with a possible weekly testing alternative. 100 million people fell under that rule. As soon as it was announced, dozens of lawsuits were filed by states and private parties. It was the Texas lawsuit that resulted in the stay. The Biden administration is expected to fight the ruling. 

My Comment:

Well, that didn't take long did it? As expected a court ruled that Biden was in the wrong with his mandate. Generally speaking everyone was expecting this as the kind of action goes far beyond the scope of OSHA and was almost certainly going to face a major legal challenge. Indeed, this is not the only lawsuit and I am honestly expecting more stays like this one and for the mandate to be overturned eventually. I doubt it will ever actually go into effect. 

But the damage is being done regardless. Many of the companies in America are following the mandate even though it isn't in effect now and isn't likely to be in the future. Indeed, my place of employment has begun weekly testing for the unvaccinated (and even random testing for those of us that got the jab). They haven't fired anyone for not taking the vaccine but other companies are and it is causing absolute chaos. 

Firing people over vaccine mandates is stupid, even if it's not required by the government. It's stupid during the best of times as you are letting go of a lot of valuable employees that will not be easy to replace. Especially since many of these people are you best workers. But now with an employment shortage? It's incredibly stupid and damaging as those people will largely not be replaced. This is going to result in a major brain drain for American businesses and I don't think they realize it. 

I do think that the Biden White House expected this mandate to fail. OSHA mandates like this often fail and the legal grounds for the mandate were never good in the first place. It's very possible that this is like Biden's attempt to keep the illegal eviction moratorium that the CDC had no authority over. In that case the Supreme Court warned him that it would be overturned but he did it anyways. 

Why do it like this? For a couple of reasons. For some reason, a few Democrats are still extremely worried about the Coronavirus and want something, anything, to be done. The vaccine mandate would do next to nothing to stop the spread of the virus but it would look like something was being done. And when the courts overturn it? Well, then Biden can just use that as an excuse if the virus comes back. 

But honestly that seems like giving Biden too much credit. Instead of incompetence it might have just been malice. It seems as though just about everything domestic that Joe Biden has done in his short term in office has been to punish normal working and middle class people. He seems to hate them personally for some reason, and you know his party does. It really may be as something as petty as wanting to see people that disagree with him suffer. 

I do worry that the Supreme Court might be iffy on this issue. They have refused to take cases about vaccine mandates for colleges, inexplicably. It's possible that Justice Roberts isn't the only one on the court that it corrupt...  

If the cases all fail what then? Nothing good. This mandate will not be tolerated by the millions of workers that would be effected by that. We have already seen that the soapbox has been taken away from us. And the ballot box will do us no good since there isn't an election between now and when the mandate takes effect (on purpose I might add as it would have likely changed the outcome of the already suspicious New Jersey race). With the Jury box failing that only leaves one box left... I better not say what that box is but at this point it seems inevitable that our country is heading to violence.