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September 10, 2021

Biden breaks his promise, announces vaccine mandate for federal employees, contractors, and large employers

By Thomas Lifson

Last December, President-elect Biden promised no mask or vaccine mandates:

He broke that promise Thursday in a speech demanding federal employees (except the 644,000 Postal Service employees — see below) receive the experimental gene therapy injections and that government contractors and large employers require either vaccination or weekly testing for their employees.


YouTube screen grab.

Here is some of the Associated Press's coverage:

President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors[.] (snip)

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.

Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.

He is requiring vaccinations that don't work:

... despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two-and-a-half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year. Some 80 million people remain unvaccinated.

...bringing to mind Einstein's definition of insanity: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

He is using OSHA as an excuse for the mandates to private companies:

The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said.

The rule will require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.

He probably sees it as popular:

An AP-NORC poll conducted in August found 55% of Americans in favor of requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with 21% opposed.

He used threatening language against governors who might stand in his way.  Leslie Eastman:

Biden made a chilling verbal attack on the duly elected governors:

"If these governors won't help us beat the pandemic, I'll use my power as president to get them out of the way."

Freedom?  Personal choice?  Fuggedaboudit:

The Republican National Committee announced that it will sue:

The Republican National Committee says that it intends to sue to block Biden's order from taking effect, and several House Republicans plan to introduce legislation to negate the order.

One of the federal government's biggest employers is exempt, though Biden never mentioned this in his speech, perhaps because it makes a joke of the public health justification.  Postal Service employees (all 644,000 of them) are not required — for some reason:

The USPS exemption was initially believed to allow postal workers to duck the private-sector mandate, too. But nearly four hours after that understanding was reported, the White House issued a clarification saying that postal workers will have a choice between getting vaccinated and getting tested once a week, just like workers at large companies.

"USPS is not included in the executive order requiring vaccination of Federal employees. USPS has a separate statutory scheme and is traditionally independent of federal personnel actions like this," a Biden administration official said. (snip)

It was not immediately clear why postal workers — who serve every community in the United States, often with daily door-to-door deliveries and contact with millions of Americans — would be exempted from new mandates that apply to most federal workers and companies with 100 or more staff.

Ryan Saavedra notes:

The American Postal Workers Union, which endorsed Biden for president in June 2020, slammed the administration over the summer, saying in a statement that "it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent."

"This is stunning," Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage tweeted in response to the news. "One of the things we've learned during the pandemic is the Postal Service is a key part of national infrastructure & homeland security. We've seen what's happened to service when there have been pandemic-related staffing shortages. But USPS workers are exempt."

"To put in context, OSHA will fine businesses with 100 employees or more $14k per vaccine/testing violation," he added. "But the US Postal Service, a Goliath of federal agency, is exempt."

So, why is he doing this?

Mark Wauck:

[M]y assumption is that this bit of theater is primarily intended to distract from Zhou's many failures--and those that are quietly metastasizing, such as inflation and the disaster that is government education. Incredibly, the guy who tells Zhou what to say and do believes this hectoring and demeaning performance demonstrated "leadership":

Ace sees a similar motive, as well as an attempt to demonize his political enemies.

When the economy continues to tank, and inflation continues to soar, Biden will just blame the unvaccinated.

I'd go further and say This is the entire reason for this unconstitutional power-grab. He knows he faces an increasingly likely wipe-out in 2022: He must do something, then, to change the trajectory.

If he can't fix the economy, he'll fix blame.

Others point out that in India and the U.K., where the delta variant spread earlier than here, it appears to fizzle out of its own accord.  So Biden may be seeking to claim a "victory" by taking credit for a decline that is already in the cards.

As usual, the Democrats' lickspittles have no principles:

There will be plenty of lawsuits.  And quite possibly, a federal judge somewhere may issue a nationwide stay, as was done so often in the case of President Trump's executive orders.  Stand by for leftists to suddenly oppose nationwide orders from federal district judges.

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