The Biden administration has already been dealt plenty of embarrassing blows in its efforts to force Americans to be injected with the COVID-19 vaccine, and on Thursday it got its worst one yet:
The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House's plan to address the pandemic as cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise...
The employer mandate would have required workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or to wear masks and be tested weekly, though employers were not required to pay for the testing. There were exceptions for workers with religious objections and those who do not come into close contact with other people at their jobs, like those who work from home or exclusively outdoors.
Ouch.
Before you cheer too hard, the Supreme Court is allowing a more narrowly tailored healthcare mandate to stay in place that would affect 20 million workers:
[T]he court allowed a more modest mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated.
The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority.
Medicare or Medicaid are included in "federal money," so this affects a huge percentage of those in healthcare.
The reasoning for the block should have been the impending death of liberty and the Constitution, but the Court decided to go with the fact that OSHA doesn't have a right to mandate "broad public health measures" outside the workplace.
"Although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most," the Court ruled. "COVID–19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases."
The general business mandate was arguably far more far-reaching and consequential, so its defeat is much more of a relief for those concerned with medical freedom and constitutional liberty.
Not a great Thursday for the Biden administration, but a real good Thursday for the rest of us!
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
