Posted on 08/19/2021 1:31:10 PM PDT by The Pack Knight
Updating the nation on the White House response to COVID on Wednesday, President Biden said he has directed Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to exercise full oversight authority and explore legal action against governors who attempt to prohibit school mask mandates by executive orders.
“Some politicians are trying to turn public safety measures into political disputes for their own political gain,” Biden said, referencing Tennessee and other Republican states, which he alleged have used “intimidation and threats” against school boards.
The president said he called a number of superintendents in Florida in solidarity, praising their mask rules for K-12 students in defiance of Governor Ron DeSantis’s ban. Biden said those schools’ were “follow[ing] the science” and putting “students first.”
“I will stand with those who are trying to do the right thing,” he said.
Biden echoed the earlier comments of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, affirming that funds from the American Rescue Plan can be used to reimburse the salaries of educators in school districts requiring masks in violation of governors’ orders.
Additionally, Biden announced a vaccine mandate for nursing home staff who service Medicaid patients, citing the low rates of inoculation at assisted living facilities. He said he will use “the power of the federal government as a payer of healthcare costs to reduce those risks for our most vulnerable seniors.”
Applauding the private companies that preemptively required their employees to receive the shot, such as McDonalds, Biden said that “employers have more power to end this pandemic than ever before.”
He warned that the delta variant, which he said is twice as transmissible as the alpha variant, accounts for the bulk of new cases in the United States. While over 90 percent of seniors have had at least one shot, among other promising statistics, he stressed that “we need to go faster.”
“We are still in a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said, adding that “It’s a tragedy. There are people who are dying who didn’t have to.”
Speaking to the already vaccinated population, Biden announced a booster shot program, pending approval from the FDA, to combat the vaccine’s declining effectiveness. Eight months from receiving a second dose, the president said it will be recommended to receive a booster, meaning anyone vaccinated on or before January 20th will become eligible starting in late September.
The booster will promote immune response and is the “best way to protect ourselves from new variants that could arise,” he asserted.
Biden also addressed the complaints of world leaders who have criticized the administration for encouraging and distributing a third shot while some countries struggle to supply and administer the original two doses.
“We can take care of America and help the world at the same time,” he insisted.
Biden is a dictator. He will use whatever arm of the fascist government he wants to do his bidding. It only works one way and goes one way.
DOE take action against governors? Are you kidding me?! This is out of control, we can’t accept this.
The democrat party, writ large, is the enemy.
But yet....sanctuary cities.
As if he didn’t have more important things to do.
Biden’s favorite adviser tried to tell him how to handle this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PUif106VC-o
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This smells like Nancy again
Time for the SCOUS to get involved. As far as I know—this is still a free country. We have CHOICE! This is COMMUNIST LAW!!!
or lose fed-funds... right?
The Department of Education has zero enforcement authorization here. Maybe they can withhold .005% of federal funds, that's about all.
Not likely. The states and local jurisdictions are addicted to the federal dollars. They have made their faustian bargain.
I expect Biden to start executing unmasked repubs.
Meanwhile US Citizens are trapped in overthrown Islamist Afghanistan and he thinks they have an existential crisis.
This is simply unbelievable, what is going on here.
Sorry....Biden doesn’t have power over the governors. We all know that from our esteemed gov...Cuomo....who told Trump that he (Cuomo) made the rules for the state.
When do the pitchforks and torches come out. This is becoming insanity.
Communist Puppet. Totally illegitimate.
All state governors should completely ignore anything coming from that criminals mouth.
Instead they should mobilize their respective national guards and get ready to arrest and imprison the occupiers in DC.
Democrats always bend over backwards for the teachers unions, don’t they? That’s all this amounts to. They know damn well that children aren’t in much danger from covid, but the assholes in the teacher’s unions just have to have their way.
“..1996 Republican Party platform included a promise to abolish the Department of Education. ..”
From the time the Department of Education was founded in 1979 the proficiency of students in the the three “R’s” has steadily declined so that among the world’s schools, our students rate far down the list. We were at the top. The DOE has performed poorly and only served to introduce liberal ideologies onto our children. It must go away.
RESIST
Texas should be declared a sanctuary state. A sanctuary from all of the idiocy that is Washington.
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