Posted on 01/05/2022 5:23:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Last week, Anthony Fauci, resident Joe Biden's top infectious disease adviser, said the federal government should consider requiring that domestic air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19. "When you make vaccinations a requirement," he explained, "that's another incentive to get more people vaccinated."
Although requiring vaccination of airline passengers ostensibly would be aimed at making air travel safer, Fauci sees it as a way to boost the U.S. vaccination rate. The Biden administration sees its vaccination rule for private employers, which ostensibly is aimed at addressing a workplace hazard, the same way.
The contrast between that broader goal and the legal justification for the employer mandate is at the center of the debate about whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has the authority to impose it. That debate comes to the Supreme Court on Friday, when the justices will consider whether the mandate should be blocked until the challenges to it are resolved.
OSHA's rule, which it published on November 5, demands that companies with 100 or more employees require them to be vaccinated or wear face masks and undergo weekly virus testing. When Biden announced that policy in September, he presented it as part of the administration's plan for "vaccinating the unvaccinated."
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle called OSHA's mandate "the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations." White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain retweeted Ruhle's comment, reinforcing the impression that the rule aims to reduce the overall impact of COVID-19 by pressuring Americans to get vaccinated.
But OSHA has no such authority. Officially, its rule is an "emergency temporary standard" that is "necessary" to protect employees from a "grave danger" in the workplace.
That characterization, if accepted by the courts, allows OSHA to exercise the sort of public health powers that are ordinarily reserved to the states. It also allows the agency to issue regulations that take effect immediately, without the notice, public comments and hearings that are usually required.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which stayed the ETS the day after it was published, said it "grossly exceeds OSHA's statutory authority." But after the challenges to the mandate were consolidated and assigned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, a divided three-judge panel lifted the 5th Circuit's stay, which is how the case ended up at the Supreme Court.
OSHA's sudden decision to invoke its "emergency" powers, nearly two years after the pandemic began and a year after vaccines became available, seems dubious. So does its preference for vaccination, which, unlike other workplace safety measures, is not limited to the workplace. Tellingly, OSHA's estimate of its rule's benefits is based on deaths prevented by vaccination of working-age Americans, regardless of where transmission occurs.
OSHA has never before required or encouraged employers to make vaccination mandatory, even when it issued a COVID-19 ETS for the health care industry in June and when it addressed bloodborne pathogens through the usual rule-making process. Both of those standards dealt with situations where employees faced increased disease risks because of the nature of their work -- treating COVID-19 patients and handling biological specimens, respectively.
The vaccine-or-testing requirement, by contrast, applies to 84 million employees -- two-thirds of the workforce -- in myriad industries and workplaces, with little regard to how COVID-19 risk varies across them. And it exempts companies that employ fewer than 100 people, as if the risk of COVID-19 transmission disappears below that threshold.
That is not the only puzzling distinction drawn by OSHA. According to the government's data, middle-age workers who are vaccinated face about the same COVID-19 risk as younger workers who are not vaccinated. According to OSHA, however, COVID-19 poses a "grave danger" to the latter group but not to the former.
It certainly looks like the Biden administration is trying to disguise a general vaccine mandate as a workplace safety measure. The Supreme Court will ultimately decide how convincing that disguise is.
One can just imagine the pinheads working at the White House on Biden’s staff discussing options on how to push their agenda. They probably thought they were clever. Sad, laughable, and pathetic.
I know three people who were vaccinated AND got the booster AND still got Covid 19-84.
I don’t answer to Stephanie Ruhle or Ron Klain.
That’s all democrats do is scheme and coerce.
Screw.The.Courts.
Here's a hint for all you slow lib lurker fascists out there. The vaccines have been widely available for months. Everyone who wants to be vaccinated and boosted, has been vaccinated and boosted. The rest of us DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE!
It really is that simple. Now it comes down to is it legal and moral to try to force us to participate. The Constitution and common sense would say no. The results of the Nuremberg trials after the Nazis forced medical procedures on the uninformed and unwilling would also suggest no. Tell me how you square away forcing people to do things "for the good of everyone" with personal freedom and liberty? Sounds more like tyranny and socialism/communism. Particularly when there is open debate about the actual "good" or not of what you want to force on the unwilling.
After Biden announced there was no federal answer to covid.
I don’t even watch MSNBC.
More mischief from the monster
He has no idea as to what's going on in the background. None.
Guess the scotus will decide, or not, if they were clever. Will they punt?
“He has no idea as to what’s going on in the background. None”.
That’s right. They just give him talking points.
Brandon: “For God’s sake. Get vaccinated.” Uh, hey brandon, NO!
Just keep pushing you commie bastards. Keep pushing.
The day is coming.
It’s time to forget factions and throw off the crowd of criminals who call themselves the US Government. That includes Republicans and Democrats.
These people have been deceiving, cheting, exploiting and betraying us for TOO long. This ‘government’ is forcing ruinous policies on us and there is no end in sight.
A little solidrity goes a long way!! It has been done before and it CAN be done again.
I have never seen any other situation where the Government cares so much about me and my health.
This is so far beyond the boundaries of accepted norms for government behaviour, I can’t help but wonder what else could be driving this.
Around the world, governments are punishing citizens for not complying. They continue to raise the consequences for making your own decision.
Perhaps it just about health. Or perhaps there’s more. One thing’s for sure: Once you have been injected you can’t go back.
What is the cause of the rise in death rates over the last two quarters?
If they DO NOT AND WILL NOT test arriving illegals (their ‘migrants’) NOR vaccinate them then the OSHA ruse is nothing but that, a ruse.
The government is not serious about addressing Covid at the level of the hysteria they portray in generating all these ridiculous controls trying to get around the basic fact that he does not have the raw power to mandate a vaccine outright on its face, sans all these backdoor excuses like OSHA.
Me neither.
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