Biden Admits He Can't Mandate Masks. Why Does He Think He Can Mandate Vaccines?
Biden's sudden embrace of a federal vaccine requirement seems inconsistent with his acknowledgment that he cannot mandate every COVID-19 precaution he'd like people to follow.
The most audacious part of the COVID-19 plan that President Joe Biden announced today is a rule demanding that every U.S. company with 100 or more employees require them to be vaccinated or submit to weekly virus testing. In contrast with that bold assertion of federal regulatory power, Biden is still stopping short of a broad face mask mandate, which he has said is beyond his powers as president.
The difference between these two approaches is hard to understand based on what the law allows—or, more to the point, what the Biden administration has said the law allows. Biden's sudden embrace of a federal vaccine requirement seems inconsistent with his acknowledgment that he cannot mandate every COVID-19 precaution he'd like people to follow.
The White House says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) "is developing a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work." To "implement this requirement" in the meantime, OSHA is relying on its statutory authority to issue an "emergency temporary standard" if it decides the standard is "necessary to protect employees" from a "grave danger" posed by "exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful." The requirement "will impact over 80 million workers in private sector businesses."
When it comes to face masks, however, Biden is not claiming OSHA has the power to require them in private workplaces. Instead, he is extending orders that require masks on federal property and in interstate transportation, including airports and airplanes. The transportation rules, previously scheduled to expire this month, will now be in effect at least until January 18, regardless of how many Americans are inoculated between now and then. The Transportation Security Administration is doubling the fines for violators, from $250 to $500 for the first offense and from $1,500 to $3,000 for repeat offenders.
Nor is Biden claiming he can simply order public schools across the country to require "universal masking." Instead, he has instructed the Department of Education to investigate whether states that prohibit mask mandates in schools are violating federal laws that ban discrimination against students with disabilities. Assuming the department concludes that's the case, that dubious legal interpretation, which would in effect make federal COVID-19 guidelines for schools mandatory, will bear fruit only if it is accepted by federal courts in the inevitable litigation.
During his presidential campaign, Biden repeatedly promised that he would force all Americans to wear face masks in public places but eventually conceded that the president does not have the power to do that. "I cannot mandate people wearing masks," he said on CNN last September.
Yet in defending the nationwide eviction moratorium that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) imposed in the name of fighting COVID-19, the Biden administration argued that the Public Health Service Act of 1944 gave the agency the authority to issue any regulation it deems necessary to prevent the interstate spread of communicable diseases. That position implied vast powers that surely would encompass a broad face mask requirement, not to mention a general vaccination order and a nationwide version of the lockdowns that all but a few states imposed early in the pandemic.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the administration's reading of the law, saying it "strains credulity" to suggest that Congress gave the CDC that "breathtaking amount of authority" (and furthermore, that no one noticed those dictatorial powers until last September, when the CDC first ordered landlords to continue housing tenants who fail to pay their rent). But it was always legally puzzling that Biden, given his administration's avowed understanding of the Public Health Service Act, declined to invoke it as the basis for the mask and vaccination mandates he clearly wanted to impose.
Similarly, if OSHA can require private employees to be vaccinated (unless they submit to regular testing), why can't it also require them to wear masks? This evening Biden called Republican governors' resistance to mask mandates (which he tendentiously described as merely "encouraging people" to "mask up") as "totally unacceptable." Yet he is in fact accepting that situation as it relates to workplaces regulated by OSHA and, given the long odds against the success of the Education Department's "investigations," public schools.
Maybe Biden is implicitly conceding that masking (especially in K–12 schools) offers marginal benefits compared to vaccination. Or maybe he thinks a federal vaccination mandate will cause less of a public uproar than a federal mask mandate, which seems doubtful.
As Reason's Robby Soave notes, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky insisted as recently as July 30 that "there will be no federal [vaccination] mandate," saying "I completely understand the pushback" against earlier comments she made that were interpreted as an endorsement of that policy. Around the same time, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said requiring vaccination is "not the role of the federal government" but should instead be left to "institutions, private-sector entities, and others."
Evidently, Biden changed his mind about that, although he noted that "some of the biggest companies," including United Airlines, Disney, Tyson Foods, and "even Fox News," are "already requiring" vaccination. In addition to arguing that OSHA has the legal authority to mandate vaccination, Biden made a moral case for that policy. "This is not about freedom or personal choice," he said. "It's about protecting yourself and those around you, the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love."
Unvaccinated Americans do pose a potential threat to people with medical conditions that either preclude vaccination or weaken their response to it, and it is reasonable to ask who should bear the burden of those special vulnerabilities. But in general, as Biden emphasized, vaccination nearly eliminates the risk of life-threatening COVID-19 symptoms.
Biden scolded unvaccinated Americans, saying "our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us." Yet while addressing "the vast majority of you who have gotten vaccinated," he said this:
I understand your anger at those who haven't gotten vaccinated. I understand the anxiety about getting a breakthrough case. But as the science makes clear, if you're fully vaccinated, you're highly protected from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19. In fact, recent data indicates there's only one confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated Americans per day. You're as safe as possible.
Americans 12 or older already have the option of "protecting yourself," and children face an infinitesimal risk of dying from COVID-19 even if they are not vaccinated. Given those realities, the "grave danger" cited by OSHA mainly affects people who eschew vaccination, which makes this policy look more like paternalism than an effort to protect others from the unvaccinated. That presumably is what Walensky had in mind when she said "I completely understand the pushback" against the federal vaccine mandate she promised the administration would never impose.
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The king can do whatever he wants.
(Awaiting a certain idiot who will whine about people saying things about Trump.)
Whatever
A tyrant does as a tyrant does. Biden is a tyrant.
Bring back Trump in 2024.
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Didn’t Georgy Porgy III try that stunt a while ago?
Didn’t work out too well for him.
He got fucked royally.
https://eezeytraffic-review.medium.com/cash-cloner-review-oto-huge-bonuses-32546780eea3
Biden’s sudden embrace of a federal … requirement
where have you been for the last 50 years?
Suddenly.,. Lol
It was only everything democrats said trump should do last year. Why is reason surprised?
It’s time to get rid of the democrats.
Like vote em out?
No.
That might work. Except they’re not acting like they think they need to worry about any more elections.
Funny that.
“You can vote your way into authoritarianism, but you have to shoot your way out”
– Tim Pool
He doesn’t care (or the people behind him don’t care).
It’s exactly like the CDC evictions — they are illegal but useful in the short-term. It doesn’t matter if SCOTUS strikes down the mandate after thousands have jabs have gone into arms.
And we can all agree that since Donald Trump initiated the CDC eviction ban that he also does not care about constitutionality. Agreed?
Of course. Why would I defend Donald Trump on an issue where he’s clearly and obviously wrong?
Awesome!
That’s all that matters to you. Criticizing Trump.
Are you going to condemn Biden?
No way.
Oh, no. He cares about criticizing commenters here.
For a “libertarian”, he never seems to have any aver with any of these issues, only the commenters criticizing Biden.
He’s a traitor.
Aver? He never seems to have any anger…
Edit button would be great. And while we’re at it, the Flag Comment button is too easy to accidentally hit.
Biden reimplimented it after a ussc ruling you dishonest shit.
This is the part Mike doesn’t like to talk about.
Trump was wrong to do it in the first place.
Biden was wrong to continue it.
Biden was WAY MORE WRONG to reinstate it after it got shut down.
Trump also declined all mandates. Can you admit that or are you going to continue to deflect?
Like other movement progressive, Mikey should be put in prison.
Easy enough to get a fake vaccination card. I should say ridiculously easy since there is no watermark or anything else to prevent copying them. So you just show your employer that and COVID continues to spread. Who will Biden blame then? Oh yeah, Trump…
All part of the plan. Oh no too many people are using fake vaccination cards we need a national and digital system. Hell there are statists already calling for it.
OSHA has a lot of seemingly arbitrary rules. If you go to the back room of a Walmart, you’ll see yellow lines in various spots, spots where you are not allowed to put anything. Some might be blocking exits, but most are just seemingly put down willy nilly.
You can’t stand a pallet on its side.
You can go over a conveyer belt but not under it. Even though for the average person, it’s more dangerous to go over.
You have to stop and clear out if you have a bleach spill, but apparently not a cleaning bleach spill.
The OSHA regulations are a patchwork, typically made willy-nilly after someone did something stupid and got themselves killed.
Yep, every single regulation is there for a reason, usually because of some idiot that did something stupid.
Chipper Morning Wood————————————————————————–
May.26.2021 at 6:29 pm
Flag Comment Mute User
Libertarians have more in common with Marxism than with modern conservatism. It’s sad that it’s come to that, but here we are.
When it comes to face masks, however, Biden is not claiming OSHA has the power to require them in private workplaces.
Which is weird, as there are already all kinds of circumstances in which OSHA completely has and totally uses its power to require masks in private workplaces.
Yes, but those masks serve a purpose.
^^^ Fuckin’ THIS
Yes yes the bootlickers in the government lied out their smelly buttholes. That’s par for the course. It’s what jeffsarc lives for on his knees hoping for more gruel.
Given that senile Joe has exempted the postal workers, who are majority black and hispanic, he (well really the psychos in his admin) know the blowback will be intense.
The reality is this will shove a bunch of low income people out who aren’t gonna appreciate old senile Joe at all, and will pay him back at the ballot box.
Do not comply. Fuck Joe Biden.
Haha. The ballot box. Cute.
Don’t think they’re worried about that. They can’t be.
You think about me way too much. It’s unhealthy.
Biden Admits He Can’t Mandate Masks. Why Does He Think He Can Mandate Vaccines?
Um…. you realize this is the same guy who admitted he had no Constitutional authority to mandate rent payment suspensions and then went ahead and did it anyways, right? I’m kinda seeing a pattern here and I’d suggest you might need to see an eye doctor if you can’t see it as well.
Yeah, it’s really the other way around. Biden thinks he can mandate vaccines. Why doesn’t he think he can mandate masks?
And, remember DACA? Obama said he had no authority to do that, then went ahead and did it anyway.
Democrats just aren’t embarrassed by this sort of thing, they just memory hole their prior statements, and move on.
“I understand your anger at those who refuse to be vaccinated.”
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Joke Biden is a wannabe Sith.
Biden scolded unvaccinated Americans, saying “our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.”
Keep the threats coming, Corn Pop. You’ve only got about 16 months before President Harris parks your ass in a home.
Biden scolded unvaccinated Americans, saying “our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.”
CWAA
The previously infected who also are unvaccinated seem to pose much less of a risk to themselves and others than the vaccinated who haven’t been infected. Even the WahooPost agrees: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/vaccines-versus-covid-19-the-great-immunity-debate/2021/09/07/b55f2aca-0fe4-11ec-baca-86b144fc8a2d_story.html
So. Why the fuck talk about unvaccinated Americans posing risks to others when we know a substantial amount of the unvaxed have natural immunity that appears to be much more robust than the vaxxed?
And, why cannot proof of prior infection pass? Why force people who have natural immunity to take a shot with known adverse consequences (albeit very unlikely) when they already have better protection than a shot alone would provide?
If they acknowledged acquired immunity, many low-risk people would choose exposure over the jab.
And?
And that’s unacceptable to the people who have a goal of getting jabs into arms.
This is true.
The mission is obedience.
That is all.
They already have been, of course. The main problem is too many people underestimate their own risk profile: this country is filled with people that are basically unable to acknowledge just how old and/or fat they are.
This is likely true.
So what if people underestimate their own risk? People skydive and ride motorcycles. The risk for most people from china flu is very low. Being fat is a risk of many things. DO YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?!
This does not bother me, and if you mind your own business you won’t be minding mine.
And most of the people in the high risk category are either retired or on disability already. So OSHA should have no valid basis for enforcing a vaccination rule.
Which, of course, is not my problem.
I do think that top down decision makers make the wrong decision for people way more often than people make the wrong decision for themselves.
Markets require freedom of choice and that applies all products and services we buy. Which includes medical decisions.
I’m 62, and at the time I got Covid I was pushing 240 pounds, with a history of bronchitis, and my lungs were damaged a decade ago by an invasive cancer. (But I do hike a lot.)
It was a two day head cold.
Understand that, even with co-morbidities, Covid usually isn’t that bad. The bad cases are exceptions unless something already has you at death’s door.
Anyway, I haven’t been vaccinated, because I’m not into pointlessly redundant injections. And the government officially pretending that having had Covid doesn’t mean anything proves to me that they don’t care about my health, they’re just power junkies.
Let’s put it this way: if you had the opportunity to get vaccinated and deferred, that was a silly decision even though it worked out in the end. Most episodes of drunk driving end up with everyone home safely, but that doesn’t make the decision to drive home as safe as taking a cab.
the government officially pretending that having had Covid doesn’t mean anything proves to me that they don’t care about my health, they’re just power junkies.
But we knew that already.
Let’s put it this way: if you had the opportunity to get vaccinated and deferred, that was a silly decision even though it worked out in the end. Most episodes of drunk driving end up with everyone home safely, but that doesn’t make the decision to drive home as safe as taking a cab.
Disagree. The risk of any lasting complications is still very low. In fact, the risk is more akin to driving, drunk or not – there’s always a chance you could get hurt or even die, even though the risk is very low.
And that’s bad why? Exposure may very well be safer for them.
Because this isn’t about the virus. It doesn’t matter what’s good for THOSE PARTICULAR PEOPLE. It’s about what’s good for the people in charge. And those people want shots in arms.
Why do you think FDA still hasn’t approved these vaccinations for children? They haven’t been convinced the benefit/risk ratio is greater than 1 for them.
Incompetence? Or maybe it will end up in the order when the CDC drafts it.
Why jump to conspiratorial thinking? What evidence is there that some shadowy pharma puppet masters are pulling strings?
When you see a puppet dance, you don’t have to see the strings to know they are there.
What about Pinocchio? Boom. Mike wins.
1 in 5000 fully vaccinated Americans per day get COVID-19 … that is about 25% of the daily cases. But that number isn’t as marketable – is it Joe? Fully vaccinated individuals still can carry and transmit COVID-19 for about 4-5 days. NHS in UK very transparently shared that more than a third of patients that landed in the hospital with delta we’re fully vaccinated. Vaccination does not overwhelmingly eliminate chance for a bad outcome. Not saying vaccination doesn’t reduce risk of severe outcomes and is the smart thing to do if your in an a high risk group, but this mandate is but this is absolutely absurd. This coming the week that case rates are slowing/plateauing… just as anyone who studied the delta trends in other countries predicted. This coming the week that Israel is showing us that natural immunity is superior to vaccine (supporting several other prior studies). This is about power and greed.
Fascists gotta Fasc. Hmmm…100. What a nice round number. Do you think a scientific consensus was reached that 100 is the correct Scientific number? I think it should be every company with 87 employees or more. Because Science and stuff. Doesn’t that sound more Sciency?
They gave people the choice but people made the wrong one, so now they have to mandate the right one. Fascism in a nutshell.
Larger companies are easier to control. Standard fascism.
A poll of Covid-19 viruses showed that 98 of every 100 will agree to not infect people if they work for companies with less than 100 employees. On the other hand, the poll showed that 100 viruses out of 100 cannot count. Someone please tell Biden/Fauci.
Also, 100 out of 100 viruses needed help filling out the survey.
When your goal is power, the law is merely a suggestion.
Biden hasn’t given a single thought to this at all. He’s just reading what’s put up on the teleprompter in front of him.
This is being done at the behest of the FDA, CDC, and NEA, as well as lobbyists for the vaccine makers. If there was money in facemasks, whichever global megacorps made those would be getting it’s share of this, too.
3M needs to put a cartel together to start onshoring N95 production (with good union jobs!), followed by a steady drumbeat around the need for real masks.
They are maxed out on production now (in the US). 24/7 operation. Industrial machinery to make more is 10-16 months away. Quite high tech and quite fast. I know because….. it paid my salary for the last 6 months.
I notice no one here is talking about Afghanistan – – – – – – – –
I notice one bozo here isn’t willing to stay on topic in each thread. But people can always mute you if you remain too thick to cooperate.
Pointing out that Biden needed something to pull his tanked poll numbers back to square, and that this is the something they’re going with, is not off topic.
Yeah, a distraction is needed. Not sure this is it. People are pissed. I would hope that this would send the poll numbers lower, but I guess we’d never hear about that.
Good suggestion, you are now muted cocksucker.
So was this meant to be a distraction from that?
Because if so, Biden’s doing it wrong. His next big bold attention-grabbing action was supposed to make him more popular, not even less popular.
Biden is going to lose worse than Mondale at this rate.
Hope so. But I doubt it.
I notice no one here is talking about the debt – – – – – – – –
I notice no one here is talking about the Biden family finances – – – – – –
Election audits
Impeach.
Not just him. We’re past the point where this country can tolerate the democrat party. It needs to be dissolved. Groups like congressional democrats, leftist media people, academics, leftist celebrity activists, and their financial backers all need to go too.
This is necessary because they’ve made it necessary. If anyone disagrees, please present a better alternative.
Seize all of their assets and use them to fund reparations. If any organization in America deserves to be punished for its role in slavery and discrimination, its the Democrats.
I’d say southern conservatives deserve it more. They’re the descendants of the slave owners and traitors. They overwhelmingly support the GOP today.
I’d say southern conservatives deserve it more. They’re the descendants of the slave owners and traitors. They overwhelmingly support the GOP today.
You go have yourself a looksee at what side of the aisle that old plantation money sits on, sockpuppet, I think you’ll be heading down denial faster than a pharroah in a flood.
In addition, make 3 generations of their families slaves to a black family.
Voting them out.
This is your guy, Sullum.. But at least no mean tweets, right?
Lots of buyer’s remorse stories today.
So the only justification I read here for people who don’t want the jab to get the jab is, “Unvaccinated Americans do pose a potential threat to people with medical conditions that either preclude vaccination or weaken their response to it”. Mr. Sullum continues, “and it is reasonable to ask who should bear the burden of those special vulnerabilities.” Yes, it is REASONable to ask – this and MANY other questions about the virus and the vaccines.
Turns out vaccinated Americans also spread the china virus to these people, so there is that.
NO! NO MANDATES PERIOD!
If I read the tea leaves around this mandate correctly, I think the inconsistencies pointed out by the article as well as the push back by States as well as certain businesses, combined with a conservative Supreme Court may leave this mandate stymied. The Marxists would know this. Sooo,,.
I wonder if the issue may not be the issue. A move on the Supreme Court? Desperation move to pivot attention from…election audits? Provoke Americans? False flag event coming to demonize the unvaccinated in order to move the Great Reset forward? American rage is palpable, they know it… don’t they? And they’re continuing to push buttons.
If your conspiracy minded, it seems like someone is knocking out the 2024 Democrat presidential contenders one by one. First Cuomo, then Newsom, Harris took herself out (or Biden sank her with the border crisis albatross), now Biden was set up to make huge blunders in Afghanistan and on vaccine mandates.
Maybe Hillary Clinton found a mad scientist who can keep her upright long enough to give a speech again? They managed it for Biden somehow….
I propose a fun parlor game.
Make an argument as to why an abortion mandate is wrong and shouldn’t be put into place.
There is one rule:
Your argument is NOT allowed to rely on anything based upon, or resembling “my body, my choice”.
Your argument must be one based on science, statistics, proposed harm reduction will not be realized, etc. The argument must be based on the science of the lack of need, not based on any ethical argument about self-ownership.
Go.
Banning abortions will stop people from getting abortions exactly the way that banning weed stopped people from smoking weed. And, as is often the case, government force isn’t the answer to abortion.
Are we willing to kill people who get or perform abortions? If not……..
To put it in terms of the ‘vaping crisis’ — by banning vaping products we’re driving people to the (more dangerous) black market. I have zero doubt that girls desperate not to have a baby will find a way to make it happen. Do we want them swallowing some concoction they found on the internet that’s shipped from China?
Do we want them swallowing some concoction they found on the internet that’s shipped from China?
No one’s banning contraceptives or morning after pills.
No one’s banning abortion. They’re just defining the window as 6 weeks/fetal heartbeat.
Not a ban.
Well, we’re willing to kill people to stop them from killing others. Pro-lifers think fetuses (or unborn children, if that’s more one’s take) should be included in the definition of “others”.
And murder still happens, even though it’s illegal. I’ve never heard anyone seriously argue we should legalize it since it cannot be stopped completely.
I’ve never heard anyone seriously argue we should legalize it since it cannot be stopped completely.
—–
That’s because it’s a stupid analogy.
Just look at the war on drugs. How many millions of lives ruined trying to stop people from smoking?
Are you prepared to lock up women who have a miscarriage? Are you willing to put those women on trial?
Well, if you mandate abortions, our population is going to crash, for one thing.
Right, but that’s for future generations. How does it affect people who already exist? How does the non-existence of future persons have any impact on those already with us?
The real issue here is this: If someone says to Biden, “You are aware, are you not, that those who have been exposed to COVID, but developed natural immunity, are more safe to be around than the vaccinated.” Does he understand what you are saying?
Chocolate chocolate chip!
Ethics professor at the University of Ontario makes video explaining the widely accepted idea that forced medical procedures are unethical.
Short video, worth a watch. She uses herself as an example, as her employer mandated COVID vaccines. She made the decision to NOT get the vaccine because if she was going to literally teach ethics, she’d be setting a terrible example to her students.
She was subsequently fired.
This is a copy of the video because according to what I can find, her original video was removed by Youtube. It’s on Rumble as well, but I couldn’t find it.
I did a little digging on her to make sure this wasn’t a fake video posted by an internet rando making shit up. As best as I can tell, she is legit, she works where she said she works, and has a history of videos and podcasts about “medical ethics” going back before today.
In the spirit of truth, here is a ‘straight’ news site on this woman.
The money shot:
So it’s possible she has not been… “fired” and given the strange, weaselly way in which the HR department responded, it seems that if it’s a mandate, and she refuses, and she’s not allowed on campus, then I’m not sure what the mandate means, and what her absence in her own classroom would mean if she… wasn’t allowed on campus… ever.
I suspect the HR department is doing what HR departments do, which is lie and twist and contort on behalf of the employer.
“No one is going to jail if you refuse to use the wrong pronouns. It’s only a fine.”
“What if I refuse to pay the fine?”
*silence*
exactly what jordan peterson said too
Lefties are so much easier to understand when you accept that they always lie. Every single thing they say is a lie. They do not believe in principles, all they believe in is power.
I found another article from The National Post (I won’t link it here) which went into much greater detail.
So the HR department is, as I suspected, soundly and roundly full of shit. No one has been fired over the policy because the fucking paperwork isn’t complete yet. So HR Head Robin DiAngelo is a fucking lying liar.
I also found this damn near comical:
Just a note, you know, that this professor has been known to associate with people on that right… just so you know, because it’s newsworthy.
Funny how it’s never been newsworthy that 99.9999992342908745987234928735498243756% are card carrying Trotsky/Marxists. Because, you know, hey man, it’s college, broheim.
Jordon Peterson
Hope he is doing better.
He was near death with the Benzo addiction and starvation meat and salt diet.
Stabbing anyone with a sharp instrument, or forcing them to submit to someone else stabbing them, is the fundamental definition of aggression. It’s like the military draft — if the threat is real enough, people enlist voluntarily.
So we’re finished talking about whether or not COVID-19 came from a lab, and what our government’s role in it’s formulation was? Maybe that’s a better target for the people’s anger, vs trying to direct it at the unvaccinated as our fine Reason-endorsed President seems to have just attempted tonight.
Look, it’s out here, there’s no use crying over spilled Fauci emails. Let’s get on with the New World Order.
Has the NIH stopped funding gain of function research in China?
Does anybody know?
Ken, we don’t fun gain of function research, that would be illegal!
Sort of like we didn’t torture people in Abu Ghraib; torture was illegal. What we did was enhanced interrogation.
“It is reasonable to ask who should bear the burden of those special vulnerabilities”
Is that a buried apologies for this shit?
Rights are the obligation to respect other people’s choices, and the government has an obligation to respect our right to choose what’s injected into our bodies.
My body, my choice.
“Biden Admits He Can’t Mandate Masks. Why Does He Think He Can Mandate Vaccines?”
He’s a fascist.
He thinks our rights only exist if the government says so.
He believes in using the coercive power of government to force people to do whatever is in the best interests of the state.
He even believes that social media only exists insofar as they support the goals of the government.
It’s a one party government.
Why not call it what it is? Is this about buyer’s remorse?
Maybe it’s about keeping the servers up.
He thinks our rights only exist if the government says so.
and he would be correct in thinking that, because even a cursory glance at the history of human cultures proves it; even if our rights come from some old guy sitting on a cloud in the sky, we only have them because the old guy says so…
no ‘societal rights’ exist without their having been granted by people who have acheived such granting power, whether by hook or crook or otherwise…if you think differently, please explain the process of how we come upon these rights…
I know. It’s silly to even argue that rights exist in some natural-science sense rather than a political-science one.
Where do these creative interpretations of the rules end? Could the next administration say that workplace shootings pose a “grave danger” to “exposure to substances [bullets]… that are physically harmful.” and therefore, all employers must allow employees to be armed to protect themselves? The pattern has always been that one party breaks precedent and the next party gets into office and takes it further.
It seems especially insane to me that these rules are being used to force vaccination when Biden is claiming that he can impose masking. Pretty sure OSHA rules have long required hospitals to provide masks along with proper training to protect workers potentially exposed to infectious people/substances. It seems like FAR less of a stretch to mandate similar regulations to any industry where there is exposure to the public or other employees. Not saying it is good policy, but at least it would be more conventionally bad.
Sometimes, I think we do ourselves a disservice by taking the progressives’ rationalizations seriously.
They don’t care about justifications. Like any school yard bully, they’re doing this because they can and they want to.
“If these governors won’t help, I will use my powers as president and get them out of the way.”
Biden’s turning out to be more authoritarian than the guy we rebelled against to become a nation.
“Biden Admits He Can’t Mandate Masks. Why Does He Think He Can Mandate Vaccines?”
Maybe because he’s a completely brainless idiot?
Maybe because the puppeteers with their hands up his ass are even more stupid?
Wait, Biden being inconsistent?! I – like most of the writers at Reason – have to admit that I am very surprised with this outcome. It is indeed rather inconsistent with my understanding of reality.
Establishing the Dictatorship of the Left takes time. Motives must be hidden, lies must be told until the appropriate time. They now feel they have the populace in enough fear and they have enough power to move on with their Dictatorship agenda. I am surprised this confuses Reason writers!
“potential threat to people with medical conditions that either preclude vaccination or weaken their response to it”
The people in this group deal with this everyday. Not just covid but the flu and many other communicable aliments. So why don’t we mandate other shots, like the flu? It is a flawed argument.
Are vaccines a temporary measure? I would think temporary would be not entry until cleanup or repair is completed, not an irreversible medical procedure.
It almost seems like the Nazi’s are purposely trying to bully ONLY working people; of the 1/4 of them left. I guess it’s impossible for the Nazi’s to take over the USA without first destroying the USA…. A crippling memory of the Great Depression comes to mind.
“Sell your souls to the [WE] foundation; Because you don’t own you, [WE] own you!”, the Democratic Slogan since it’s very founding.
Well, we’ve accepted further increase to executive power for years and this is a very real problem, but it’s not the issue that matters here. (I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, BTW). The framing of this article as an executive power issue clouds the true issue at hand.
The issue here is an expansion of government power in general. It doesn’t change anything if Congress, the CDC, or the courts were saying they were going to mandate vaccines. It’s not a power that any government entity should have. Full stop.
What makes this esp egregious is first that people who have natural immunity from surviving the disease are being forced to vaccinate, Second that these “vaccinations” are completely new technology, and weren’t considered “vaccines” a year and a half ago, and were only reclassified as such by the FDA this week. They are experimental procedures that we really don’t know the long term effects of, available under Experimental Use Authorizations (EUAs), which exclude legal liability for their application. You get jabbed, and die as a result, your heirs have no one to sue. Finally, because they are experimental treatments, our government is theoretically prevented by international treaty from mandating their application.
EUA = Emergency Use Authorization not experimental
Legal liability shield has nothing to do with EUA. ALL vaccines have liability shield because of the nature of vaccines: if a vaccine saves 100,000 lives, but kills 10 people, pubic health officials don’t want the vaccine sued out of existence. This is as true of the polio vaccine (the first gen vaccine very, very rarely actually gave people polio, though it was orders of magnitude safer than being unvaccinated in a polio outbreak), measles, flu, and COVID vaccine.
Your heirs can’t sue anyone but would be entitled to compensation from the fund that the government runs to compensate people who suffer from vaccine side effects. I suppose if they weren’t satisfied with the payout, they could try sueing the government.
Biden’s playing to his constituency, who’d love to see SWAT vaccination teams going house to house, kicking in the door, shooting the pets, handcuffing the residents, and vaccinating them, regardless of whether they’ve had the shots or not. Then they’d tattoo their vaccination number on the inside of their left forearm.
Don’t think this is true? Read the comments about it in the Washington Post.
Maybe the Democrats and this administration don’t give a shit about minor obstacles like the law and the constitution? Maybe they intend to do whatever they want?
Maybe they know that the way to get someone to eat an elephant is… one bite at a time.
Assumption of facts not in evidence, that Biden thinks.
This guy is a bum. Next to fauci, this guy is liar #2. Then again, he has been a lifelong DC Swamp rat and knows absolutely nothing of the real world. He has never worked an honest job in his miserable demoncrat life. Ignore this guy and the CDC and FDA.
Here’s the problem. Most businesses are risk averse to the point of bootlicking. All they want to do is avoid lawsuits and fines. Every single 100-person-plus business in the U.S. is going to comply with this.
You’re probably right, but I was happy to hear from our CEO that if the owner insists they he require our employees to be vaccinated, he will resign. He is probably one of the few who will stick by his guns, though. Most will cave.
Biden’s speech was a real humdinger. I mean: “We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated workers.” ??? What IS grandpa smoking?
Or, better yet, which millennial idiots are writing his speeches?