OPINION:
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said private businesses with more than 100 employees ought to force their workers to get the coronavirus vaccine or face weekly testing, a la the recently crafted Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule, despite the fact a federal court has just slapped back any such mandate.
Law? Schmaw. Legal? Schmegal.
Psaki’s comments should pretty much shred any lingering notions that this presidential administration aspires to represent the will of the people, the tenets of the Constitution, or the concept of law and order — or any combination thereof, to any degree at all.
“Let me be clear,” Psaki said, in a press briefing. “Our message to businesses right now is to move forward with measures that will make their workplaces safer and protect them — their workforces — from COVID-19. … That remains our message and nothing has changed.”
Except plenty has changed since OSHA first released, at the bidding of the leftists in and around this White House, its totalitarian-like rule requiring the private sector to force — force! — medical treatments on its workers, else face punitive fines of thousands of dollars. The deadline for compliance was set at January 4. Are we still America? Good question.
Regardless, what’s changed in the weeks since OSHA unleashed that bear was a Fifth Circuit freeze to the mandate, followed by a Fifth Circuit reaffirmation of its freeze. What else has changed is that the Sixth Circuit was just selected to hear the consortium of case challenges from Republican-led states against this ruling. And this Sixth Circuit, located in Ohio, is significant because 11 of its 16 full-time judges were appointed by a Republican president — six of those by Donald Trump.
OSHA withdrew.
Of course OSHA withdrew.
Everybody this side of Cuba knows this OSHA rule is blatantly unconstitutional and a pure, textbook case example of government run amok. Even Biden senses that — else why would he have said in December, 2020, he “wouldn’t demand” mandatory vaccines?
So yes. Indeed. OSHA, no doubt reading the tea leaves of the Sixth Circuit makeup — no doubt concluding that leftist judicial activism would not breeze this mandate across the finish line — withdrew its radically unAmerican rule.
But not permanently.
OSHA’s living to fight another day. Team Biden makes that clear.
“[Businesses are] essentially implementing components or versions of these vaccine requirements” regardless of court rulings, Psaki said. “And we certainly see that as a positive sign. So, we are still heading towards the same [January 4] timeline.”
The courts be danged.
The Constitution be danged.
And certainly, the citizens and the basic American concept of God-given rights be danged.
To Democrats, law is what they can twist. Order is what they can dictate. And that will remain their playbook until the end of time.
Expecting any less only puts the lawful at a disadvantage, the patriotic in a position of endlessly defensive weakness, and the moral in a position of vulnerable naivety.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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