By now, it’s clear to many that the left has used COVID-19 as a means to extend the federal government’s authoritarian control over Americans. But there are signs that the mask and vax culture that devastated the economy and created a nation of shut-ins and virus-phobes may be nearing an end. We certainly hope so.
President Joe Biden has insisted that Americans must be vaccinated to protect against the spread of new variants of the virus. He even tried to mandate it for private businesses with more than 100 workers and for federal health care employees.
But not so fast.
On Monday, responding to a suit brought by Missouri and nine other states, a federal district judge temporarily halted the vaccine mandate for health care workers at Medicare- and Medicaid-affiliated facilities.
The order is meant to “ensure that federal agencies do not extend their power beyond the express delegation from Congress,” wrote Judge Matthew Schelp of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, a Trump appointee.
Best of all, his order isn’t valid only in Missouri, but in the nine other states — Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming — that joined the Show Me State in suing the federal government.
“The Missouri led coalition just obtained an injunction HALTING Joe Biden’s CMS Healthcare worker vaccine mandate,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt wrote. “This was an egregious overreach. We’re fighting back and winning. More to come.”
This isn’t the first time a federal judge has accused the Biden administration of overreach after issuing vaccination orders that exceed the constitutional scope of the White House’s legitimate powers.
Responding to a suit by Texas, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals already shut down Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more workers. Workers would have been forced to either get a COVID-19 vaccine or take a weekly test. If a company didn’t comply, it could pay an absurdly punitive penalty of up to $13,653 for each violation.
After that decision, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration suspended its enforcement of the rule.
At some point, one or both of these decisions will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. But you should know this: Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say the federal government has the right to force citizens to take vaccines – or any other form of health care, for that matter.
Yet, even as the Biden program of vaccine coercion seems to be dying, the media and far-left Democrats in Congress are in a panic over the new Omicron variant, supposedly far more infectious than any other coronavirus variety.
Congressional Democrats and Big Media whipping up anxiety over a new viral strain is nothing new. Once again, they’re creating fear that a mutation will cause a wave of deaths, take down the global economy and “force” renewed lockdowns. Such talk has already spooked global financial markets.
Is the fear well-founded? South African Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the person who discovered the new virus, said it appears to have “extremely mild symptoms.” And the World Health Organization said Monday no deaths had been linked to the new virus.
So why panic?
Ask Biden, who imposed a travel ban on eight African countries in response to the new strain. And while he vowed Monday not to push for renewed “lockdowns or shutdowns” of the U.S. economy, he also said he’ll unveil a comprehensive strategy Thursday for fighting COVID-19, something he promised in 2020 during the campaign.
“If people are vaccinated and wear their masks, there’s no need for the lockdowns,” he said. “I expect the new normal to be, everyone ends up getting vaccinated and the booster shot.”
“The new normal?” While we believe the vaccines do indeed prevent deaths, there are also risks involved in taking experimental drugs. No person should be forced to take medicine he or she doesn’t want to take.
As for masks, recent data show they have little to no impact on the virus’ spread.
Simply put, lockdowns and vaccine mandates haven’t worked. Just ask Sweden and Denmark, or Florida for that matter, all of which ended lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates and watched as COVID cases and deaths fell. There’s a lesson there for the U.S.
After recent court decisions, it’s a good bet mandatory vaccinations won’t be part of Biden’s new “strategy.” Will he instead require “vaccine passports” or other restrictions to limit Americans rights to travel, do business or exercise their basic rights to associate with whomever they wish?
If Biden chooses unconstitutional mandates or other draconian restrictions on Americans’ freedoms, he might consider what’s happening in Europe. There, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets protesting lockdowns and other measures. With Biden’s plummeting popularity and Americans’ growing sensitivity to having their rights trampled, it could happen here too.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I never joined.
They’ve cried wolf too often.
Rearrange the letters of Omicron and you get “moronic.” Very appropriate for this latest reason for covid hysteria and fascist control, don’t you think?
No, the COVID cult is not dead. COVID may come and go, but the COVIDiots will be with us forever.
Don’t underestimate their lust for power and control. They’re not done yet…Watch.
Biden’s handlers know they are f’d so watch them go nuclear on mandates as they see their power diminish.
Generally speaking, viruses all mutate to some extent, with the general trend towards being more contagious (spreads more easily) but also less deadly. This is due to basic evolutionary pressures; if the host dies quickly (as with Ebola or MERS), there is less time to mutate. SARS CoV-2 has a (documented) survival rate of 99.98% (overall; higher with younger, healthier groups and deadlier with the elderly and sick), so with most people surviving the virus has a chance to mutate into new variants. Responding to normal evolutionary pressures most new variants are less deadly. This was true with Delta and now with Omicron, for which there appear to be few hospitalizations and no fatalities.
The Left is peddling fear porn to the masses. Masks have NEVER worked (and we’ve know this since the 1930s), even Dr. Faux-Xi said back around 1995 that most Spanish Flu victims died of bacterial pneumonia from wearing unsanitary face coverings.
Folks, they’re LYING to us and have been since the beginning of this ‘scamdemic.’