Supreme Court Stays OSHA Large Employer Vax Mandate, Upholds CMS Healthworker Mandate
Split verdict. 6-3 against OSHA mandate, with liberals dissenting. 5-4 in favor of CMS mandate, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, dissenting.
Just breaking. Split verdict. 6-3 against OSHA mandate, with liberals dissenting. 5-4 in favor of CMS mandate, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, dissenting. (In other words, Roberts and Kavanaugh voted with the liberal bloc on CMS.)
OSHA
The Supreme Court has stayed the OSHA large employer mandate (6-3, Breyer/Sotomayor/Kagan dissenting):
PER CURIAM.
The Secretary of Labor, acting through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, recently enacted a vaccine mandate for much of the Nation’s work force. The mandate, which employers must enforce, applies to roughly 84 million workers, covering virtually all employers with at least 100 employees. It requires that covered workers receive a COVID–19 vaccine, and it pre-empts contrary state laws. The only exception is for workers who obtain a medical test each week at their own expense and on their own time, and also wear a mask each workday. OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.
Many States, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA’s rule in Courts of Appeals across the country. The Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA’s rule to take effect. Applicants now seek emergency relief from this Court, arguing that OSHA’s mandate exceeds its statutory authority and is otherwise unlawful. Agreeing that applicants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule.
The heart of the ruling was that Brandon OSHA did not have the authority:
Applicants are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary lacked authority to impose the mandate. Administrative agencies are creatures of statute. They accordingly possess only the authority that Congress has provided. The Secretary has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.” In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 272 (Sutton, C. J., dissenting). It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees. “We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). There can be little doubt that OSHA’s mandate qualifies as an exercise of such authority.
The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes the Secretary’s mandate. It does not. The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health standards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secretary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace). Confirming the point, the Act’s provisions typically speak to hazards that employees face at work. See, e.g., §§651, 653, 657. And no provision of the Act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere of expertise.
The dissent was, as predicted, PEOPLE ARE GONNA DIE!:
Every day, COVID–19 poses grave dangers to the citizens of this country—and particularly, to its workers. The disease has by now killed almost 1 million Americans and hospitalized almost 4 million. It spreads by person-to-person contact in confined indoor spaces, so causes harm in nearly all workplace environments. And in those environments, more than any others, individuals have little control, and therefore little capacity to mitigate risk. COVID–19, in short, is a menace in work settings. The proof is all around us: Since the disease’s onset, most Americans have seen their workplaces transformed.
So the administrative agency charged with ensuring health and safety in workplaces did what Congress commanded it to: It took action to address COVID–19’s continuing threat in those spaces. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an emergency temporary standard (Standard), requiring either vaccination or masking and testing, to protect American workers. The Standard falls within the core of the agency’s mission: to “protect employees” from “grave danger” that comes from “new hazards” or exposure to harmful agents. 29 U. S. C. §655(c)(1). OSHA estimates—and there is no ground for disputing—that the Standard will save over 6,500 lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations in six months’ time. 86 Fed. Reg. 61408 (2021).
Yet today the Court issues a stay that prevents the Standard from taking effect. In our view, the Court’s order seriously misapplies the applicable legal standards. And in so doing, it stymies the Federal Government’s ability to counter the unparalleled threat that COVID–19 poses to our Nation’s workers. Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the Court displaces the judgments of the Government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies. We respectfully dissent….
Underlying everything else in this dispute is a single, simple question: Who decides how much protection, and of what kind, American workers need from COVID–19? An agency with expertise in workplace health and safety, acting as Congress and the President authorized? Or a court, lacking any knowledge of how to safeguard workplaces, and insulated from responsibility for any damage it causes?
CMS
On the CMS healthcare worker mandate, the Court upheld the mandate (Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch/Barrett dissenting), staying lower court rulings against the mandate:
PER CURIAM.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services administers the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide health insurance for millions of elderly, disabled, and lowincome Americans. In November 2021, the Secretary announced that, in order to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, participating facilities must ensure that their staff—unless exempt for medical or religious reasons—are vaccinated against COVID–19. 86 Fed. Reg. 61555 (2021). Two District Courts enjoined enforcement of the rule, and the Government now asks us to stay those injunctions. Agreeing that it is entitled to such relief, we grant the applications.
The majority held the order was withing the government’s authority under statute:
First, we agree with the Government that the Secretary’s rule falls within the authorities that Congress has conferred upon him.
Congress has authorized the Secretary to impose conditions on the receipt of Medicaid and Medicare funds that “the Secretary finds necessary in the interest of the health and safety of individuals who are furnished services.” 42 U. S. C. §1395x(e)(9).* COVID–19 is a highly contagious, dangerous, and—especially for Medicare and Medicaid patients—deadly disease. The Secretary of Health and Human Services determined that a COVID–19 vaccine mandate will substantially reduce the likelihood that healthcare workers will contract the virus and transmit it to their patients. 86 Fed. Reg. 61557–61558. He accordingly concluded that a vaccine mandate is “necessary to promote and protect patient health and safety” in the face of the ongoing pandemic. Id., at 61613.
The rule thus fits neatly within the language of the statute. After all, ensuring that providers take steps to avoid transmitting a dangerous virus to their patients is consistent with the fundamental principle of the medical profession: first, do no harm….
We accordingly conclude that the Secretary did not exceed his statutory authority in requiring that, in order to remain eligible for Medicare and Medicaid dollars, the facilities covered by the interim rule must ensure that their employees be vaccinated against COVID–19.
The Thomas dissent, joined by the others, disputed that CMS has this power:
To obtain a stay, the Government must show that there is (1) a reasonable probability that we would grant certiorari; (2) a fair prospect that we would reverse the judgments below; and (3) a likelihood that irreparable harm will result from denying a stay. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U. S. 183, 190 (2010) (per curiam). Because there is no real dispute that this case merits our review, our decision turns primarily on whether the Government can make a “strong showing” that it is likely to succeed on the merits. Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 426 (2009). In my view, the Government has not made such a showing here.
The Government begins by invoking two statutory provisions that generally grant CMS authority to promulgate rules to implement Medicare and Medicaid. The first authorizes CMS to “publish such rules and regulations . . . as may be necessary to the efficient administration of the [agency’s] functions.” 42 U. S. C. §1302(a). The second authorizes CMS to “prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the administration of the insurance programs” under the Medicare Act. §1395hh(a)(1).
The Government has not established that either provision empowers it to impose a vaccine mandate….
These cases are not about the efficacy or importance of COVID–19 vaccines. They are only about whether CMS has the statutory authority to force healthcare workers, by coercing their employers, to undergo a medical procedure they do not want and cannot undo. Because the Government has not made a strong showing that Congress gave CMS that broad authority, I would deny the stays pending appeal. I respectfully dissent.
Alito issued his own dissent, joined by the others:
…. But even if the Federal Government has the authority to require the vaccination of healthcare workers, it did not have the authority to impose that requirement in the way it did. Under our Constitution, the authority to make laws that impose obligations on the American people is conferred on Congress, whose Members are elected by the people. Elected representatives solicit the views of their constituents, listen to their complaints and requests, and make a great effort to accommodate their concerns. Today, however, most federal law is not made by Congress. It comes in the form of rules issued by unelected administrators. In order to give individuals and entities who may be seriously impacted by agency rules at least some opportunity to make their views heard and to have them given serious consideration, Congress has clearly required that agencies comply with basic procedural safeguards….
In these cases, the relevant agency did none of those things, and the Court rewards this extraordinary departure from ordinary principles of administrative procedure. Although today’s ruling means only that the Federal Government is likely to be able to show that this departure is lawful, not that it actually is so, this ruling has an importance that extends beyond the confines of these cases. It may have a lasting effect on Executive Branch behavior.
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Comments
Ron Kline has no authority to give OSHA powers it never had.
Good for me, bad for medics
Never thought I would exit medicine this way …..
Can you work at a place that doesn’t accept medicare and medicaid? Won’t more places like that be organizing, so that the workers can remain unvaxed?
When those start being the elite healthcare providers, somebody’s going to mention that the smartest doctors and nurses didn’t seem to get vaxed.
You can. But, they’re very few and far between. A smattering of small GPs, Dentists, orthodontists, some oral surgeons and most of the cosmetic surgeons don’t accept medicare/medicaid.
This is all about the jab, Hospitals are still using docs and nurses who are actively positive for the virus… that means contagious but “vaxxed”. Well, only vaxxed if you have had the latest booster. In France, that is every 4 months now. In SoCal, many of the medical plans pay docs less than Medicare rates. Some of the contracts with doctors were 40% of Medicare.. so income stream in a managed care environment needs CMS patients. This is now all about governmental control of a person’s body and the demanded obedience to The Science as decreed by the government.
I’m happy to pay cash for my healthcare.
Partial victory if you asked me.
Healthcare workers are still screwed. I guess it’s because of the nature in front of SCOTUS.
OSHA does not have the authority, but there is a larger question here. Does ANY government agency have the authority to mandate a vaccine that:
1- Is experimental
2- Is not approved
3- Does not prevent infection
4- Does not prevent transmission
5- Has potentially serious adverse reactions, including death
6- Is not more effective than existing therapeutics
???????????
**** of the nature of the question in front of…
The only real answer should be no…unless a law is actually passed by Congress and the Senate and signed by the President and even then it should still be a no.
Even if Congress passed a law, what enumerated power would cede to the government the authority to force people to inject things into their bodies?
It isn’t doing that. It’s requiring recipients of federal money to impose such a requirement on their employees, as a condition of getting that money.
Since nobody in this case challenged Congress’s authority to create Medicare and Medicaid in the first place and to grant money under them, the only power being evoked is that to regulate that money’s recipients, and that seems easily covered by the “necessary and proper” clause; it’s obviously necessary and proper for Congress to authorize a secretary to ensure its money is being well spent.
Still counts as coercion under the Nuremberg standards.
Ultimately is it must be the right of the individual to chose which death risk they take, or else it makes the state into a god over them.
Nothing obvious about it. The clearly stated purpose of the mandate is to use employers to act as enforcers of government dictates, and to punish the employees and their families with loss of livelihood if they don’t do as they’re told. Government has essentially forced the employer into the position of dependency, then demanded that they act as hit man for their mob. Ensuring that “money is being well spent” has not a thing to do with it. Joe Biden and his handlers don’t care about that and they don’t care a whit about your health or mine. They’re just flailing around trying to “do something” that they think will please their totalitarian base.
The purpose is irrelevant. Congress (somehow) created Medicare and Medicaid. We won’t get into which enumerated power let it do that, since nobody in this case challenged their existence, so the court couldn’t consider it. Given that it had created them, it is obviously necessary and proper for it to authorize the HHS secretary to make regulations on recipients of money from these programs. That is sufficient to justify the statute so authorizing the secretary. Which answers TargaGTS’s question.
Now all we need to do is look at the exact language Congress used in giving the secretary that authority, and see whether the regulation at issue falls within that authority. I haven’t looked up the original statute myself, but going on the text cited by the majority opinion it sure looks like it does.
Don’t places with LESS than 100 EE’s receive money? If it’s so dangerous at 100+ ee places wouldn’t it be so at small offices where people work more closely together? OR is the FAKE FAUCI FLU so smart (like you) that it knows to only haunt the hallways of the larger operations! It’s not about PROTECTION – never has been – it’s about CONTROL!! Only the weak minded sheep follow!
Because and entity receives federal money, they then own your body? And injecting people with an experimental chemical, especially while ignoring natural immunity, is money well spent? It sounds more like negligence.
It’s been well-established by SCOTUS that what can’t be accomplished constitutionally directly can’t be accomplished constitutionally in any way, even indirectly. SCOTUS is supposed to review not only the mechanism (the letter of the law) by which government reaches its ends, but also whether or not the ends are legitimate goals. (Both must pass reviews of constitutionality. The income tax of 1894 was struck down for its unconstitutional effect in its operation, not for its language, which was admitted to be constitutionally sound.)
The “necessary and proper” clause applies only to goals and actions that are accomplished through enumerated powers, the clause does not apply to any goals or actions Congress or the president decide to accomplish. It does not follow that the authority to spend money on a presumptively constitutionally-authorized goal permits the government to attach obligations to its receipt when the goal of those obligations aren’t otherwise authorized constitutionally. To allow such a thing would be to allow government to escape the constraints of the Constitution almost entirely.
The “Nuremberg standards” are just some person’s opinion. It has no relevance to this case, which is about the law and only the law.
The Nuremberg Code is listed among the ethical codes and research standards of the U.S. department of Health and Human services.
Which does not make it law. It’s still just an opinion, at most a departmental policy, which the department is free to ignore, alter, or override.
Ethics are just somebody’s opinion? Reminds me of the Nuremberg Trials. Everything the Nazis did was legal under German law. It was just somebody’s opinion that sterilization, scapegoating, concentration camps were wrong.
Here’s MILLY!! Right on time to “edumacate” us know nothings! No, the Nurember Code is NOT an OPINION! And there ARE no laws that are being used to force the “vaccines” – if there WERE laws then we wouldn’t be having this discussion! You always sound or TRY to sound so knowledgeable and educated, but come across as nothing more than ANOTHER soros troll working for a nickel a post! Please cite (not sight) the LAW that SCOTUS just struck down!
We hung people based on “some person’s opinion”?
Does not matter.
If you accept the premise of universal good and evil, once a government is dictating how people must die, they’ve crossed alt he line into universal evil.
If you do not, then government is simply defined by who has the greater might.
That said, based on your prior arguments, you appear to have adopted a purely legalist viewpoint, which lacks a concept of universal truths. Under that framework, the idea that the government can chose your death based on law without recourse to fundamental principle, is consistent, but that is, in turn with the foundational documents the US were created from, which in and of themselves, assert and then appeal to such universal truths.
So pick: do you chose to as dept legalism over the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, or do you chose a legal system consistent with the documents it derives it’s moral authority from?
They have gone out of their way to make sure there are no “existing therapeutics”, They shoot down any idea that you can receive therapy that could possible be effective.
They have purposefully shouted down any efforts in that direction.
Absolutely – and there are RECORDS that show Fauci and his fanatics KNEW about Ivermectin and HCQ a LONG time ago! There is only ONE explanation why those two REMEDIES are being withheld and people threatened if they advocate or use them!
It seems what, strange to me that the Country’s highest court can rule on an issue that seems to be in direct conflict with the Nuremberg resolutions regarding forcing experimental medicine on an unwilling American citizen.
I was hoping that these two issues would have been answered not with a resounding no, but with an unanimous HELL NO. But, I have been disappointed in the past and will be certainly disappointed in the future.
Does anyone know if this was argued to SCOTUS? We can’t expect these cloistered elitists to be aware of the obvious. EUA drugs simply may not be mandated–period! I’m asking if it was argued at all, but why wasn’t it the first argument? The primary argument?
There are no “Nuremberg resolutions”. There’s a “Nuremberg code”, which is a private declaration by its authors and has no force of law.
There is a law above the law, if you know what I mean.
You are correct. Words matter. Being untrained, I have difficulty thinking narrowly on a subject as nuanced as this is. But again, you are correct. They were not deciding anything but statutory authority for the mandate. Criticism accepted.
Remember, courts don’t rule that a law or act is “constitutional.” They rule that they have not been shown to be unconstitutional by plaintiff’s arguments. Einstein’s theory of general relativity (over 100 years old now) is still being tested by scientists. It has not been proved true or correct by any of those tests, it just hasn’t yet been falsified. Likewise the CMS mandate passed this particular test. This does not prove it’s constitutional and it’s still subject to being falsified by the right argument.
3- Does not prevent infection
4- Does not prevent transmission
These two points identify vaccination as a matter of personal health and not a matter of public health. My vaccination, for my own protection, does nothing to promote public health, because I can still become ill and subsequently spread the virus to others. Because of these shortcomings, forcing me, as an unvaccinated person, to get vaccinated does nothing to protect the health of others around me (the public).
#5 (really should be #1) – IT’S NOT A VACCINATION!! Never was, never will be, no matter if they changed the true definition!! Argh!
#6. – you can’t eradicate coronaviruses as they have an animal reservoir!!
This is all real science 101.
Exactly! So I want to know what was actually argued before SCOTUS. If they didn’t argue any of your excellent, crucial points, then SCOTUS wouldn’t have had to consider them. It’s not like any of them know what’s really going on in the world. They have to be explicitly told, just like any other DC politician.
If OSHA doesn’t have the authority then neither does CMS.
At a minimum such mandates require an explicit vote in Congress. Constitutionally ‘The People’ should decide these things through their directly elected representatives. Self-styled executive branch dictators do not have this power. Nor can they declare open ended ‘national emergencies’ that suspend Constitutionally protected rights and liberties that last two or three or more years.
But we no longer have a fully functioning Constitution. We are ruled by a federal government tyranny that is occasionally, and increasingly rarely, mitigated by the courts.
How does that follow? These are two different agencies, operating under different statutes, who made different regulations. The OSHA regulation is not clearly authorized by its statute. The CMS regulation does seem to be; at least the statute’s language is a lot clearer.
Ok – if CMS has the authority then why did they try OSHA as a “workaround”?? YOU know why! How much does it REALLY pay to post these soros talking points? I’ve been saying a nickel a post and/or reply – is more lucrative?
HENCE: IS NOT A VACCINE!
Is NOT A VACCINE – period.
These has Robert’s cowardly hands all over it. Let’s try and give a decision that’s not really a decision and make it look like we are doing something. Frankly by the time the lower courts look at this, the whole charade around vaccine will be out and it will have to be pulled from the market.
“must do something is a sign of “whiteness” (see smithsonian museum)
I’m such a racist that in my opinion, the black guy is the only one who consistently votes consistently with the plain language of the constitution.
Well, maybe the goombah as well, he just doesn’t get to write all the fire and brimstone dissents.
(Hey… It’s our word! I get to use it!)
The recent juicy document releases, from the House committee and Project Veritas, may have saved us. Most of us anyway, so sorry for healthcare workers.
What do you mean by “a decision that’s not really a decision”? The court was asked to issue two stays, and it decided both were justified, so it issued them. That’s all it could do at this point.
There is plenty to “pounce” on …
1a) Inflation (and trying to make people accept it as something good)
1b) Repeated claims of a “free” nearly $5 trillion for Breaking Bad Brandon (BBB).
1c) Destroying Our Energy Independence
2) Joe Biden hiding from the press and not taking questions.
3a) White House deciding what is “misinformation.”
3b) Invents provocation to call opposing folks as “Domestic terrorists”
4a) Disastrous foreign policy (we were supposed to get the “adults” but we got the JV team)
4b) Yielding to Chinese Communist Party intentionally withheld information about the spread of the COVID-19 virus
4b) Consistent confusion and alarm in regards to Biden’s comments about Taiwan.
4c) The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
4d) Australian sub deal that angered the French.
4e) Desperate to salvage JCPOA (AKA the Iran deal)
5a) Failure to contain COVID
5b) Gave us mandates after saying otherwise, spanked by SCOTUS
6a) The crisis at the southern border and a taxpayer built border wall around Biden’s Delaware beach mansion.
6b) The Biden Administration’s plan to give $450,000 settlements for illegal immigrants.
7) Mr. Biden’s failure to acknowledge his own incompetence.
“7) Mr. Biden’s failure to acknowledge his own incompetence.”
Notwithstanding the disaster Kamala would be as president, one wonders why nobody is screaming about the 25th amendment. Democrats were rather vocal about it with Trump five minutes after he took office.
(Assuming we’re talking about legal incompetence and not just inability to do the job well)
25th-ing Biden is actually very hard. Unless Kamala can muster a 2/3 vote in both Houses to sustain it, it can’t be done unless Biden is comatose.
2) Joe Biden hiding from the press and not taking questions.
He’s not really hiding from the press as they support him and there is no danger of being asking hard questions. He is hiding from the public as he cannot even answer easy questions without rambling and going off unscripted.
Does this mean that those *on* Medicare are next?
Where is equal protection?
What about all the healthcare workers who worked for over a year without experimental shots? Now, they are mandated?
Mass exodus from medical facilities. There is too much money to be made from the government for most hospitals not to accept Medicare/aid money.
Medicine is where freedom goes to die. Liberty… like good health… once lost is hard to regain. The Social Club of the United States has forced the issue by making some people endure lesser rights. As more and more information points to the lack of protection, let along increased risk, with the “vaccines” ….. and with the world wide demonstration of alternative medical treatments to stop and lessen the infection….these yo-yos have settled on a compromise that is beyond stupid. Supreme Court Justices…. heal they selves. Please send a Merck Manual to each one… they will need it.
This is why Pelosi was willing to sacrifice her children AND her pets to get Obamacare through Congress. Democrats count on the fact that once passed, tyranny is forever. (For you equal-opportunity folks, I will gladly stipulate RINOs and the Patriot Act.)
Madame Lazonga is still dumbfounded that the Loyal Opposition actually succeeded in getting a sunset clause attached to the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban,” AND that they succeeded in actually making the sunset stick. Of course, that was when the NRA was in its prime, and not the sick, twisted cripple that it is today.
Doctors and patients need to detach from hospitals.
Aloha!
Looks like they worked out a compromise to try to placate both sides. I thought they were supposed to rule on the law and not engage in political negotiations….
No, it doesn’t look like that at all. This doesn’t placate either side. These were two separate decisions, based on two completely different statutes. Both decisions are based squarely on the language of the statutes.. There’s no reason to expect them both to come out the same way.
And what statutes are those?? Was the “workaround” by OSHA included in any statutes?? Are you like Kramer on Seinfeld and are confusing “statutes with statues”?? The dems have the House and Senate and a turnip in the White House so if they wanted a LAW to REQUIRE EVERYONE TO BE “Vaccinated” then they could have just passed one – they didn’t because they KNEW it would be UNCONSTITUTIONAL! I agree with others about the CMS non-decision! Letting something stand rather than stating a Constitutional foundation for it is NOT making a decision – it’s just kicking the can further down the street!
They ruled on the dangers of health emergencies, and not whether it was any valid business of the federal government.
When all you have is a government, everything looks like a government project.
No, they didn’t rule on the dangers of health emergencies, they ruled on what the two statutes seem to authorize, and therefore on who is likely to prevail on the merits and therefore deserves a stay.
We are past time that Roberts should be impeached. Or found hanging from a lamp post on Pennsylvania Ave.
The difference logically is that OSHA doesn’t have the power to regulate this, HHS does.
What if Biden had had all the mandates coming out of HHS, as Trump did? Maybe it all would have been upheld.
I’m tellin’ ya, whether intentionally or not, “Sleepy Joe” isn’t so bad. Did he play to lose on the OSHA mandate, by putting it OSHA? He’s a sly old fox.
He’s not that sly. He never was. Opportunist yes,
How is opportunism not like slyness? He’s about the youngest person ever elected to the Senate, in his 20’s. He skipped the House entirely. Went from (I think) a county commissioner in Delaware, to a US senator.
Didn’t fold when Kamala attacked him, probably then arranged to have Kamala taken out by Tulsi Gabbard one or two debates later. Had to accept Kamala as VP but has frozen her out. Did fairly well against Trump in the debates, losing mainly because he had worse facts to defend Did you see how cooperative Trump was in quietly vacating the White House once their bosses confirmed they were going to switch to Biden?
He’s a world class politician, a political genius.
“He’s a world class politician, a political genius.”
Late night comedy. Or afternoon.
Thanks for the laugh.
Listen Artichoke or Millhouse whichever one you post under most of the time – the only area that the turnip in the White House is a master of is corruption! And I don’t think PRESIDENT TRUMP left quietly! Now he didn’t punch holes in walls or steal government property like another of you so admired democrats did, he showed the dignity and respect for the White House. I almost believe you are just being a clown with your postings and not adding the /s !
He was 29 when he was elected to the Senate; the minimum age to be a senator is 30 and he turned 30 between election day and being sworn in.
Biden has always been a very stupid man with one very big skill – he can present himself as a likeable gladhander and charm an audience – similar to a stand up comic. Like most Democrats, he is a pure careerist who never stood for a principle in his life besides his own enrichment.
Oooh, charisma! Where have we seen that come up lately? Mass What-What?
Thats simply not how Democrats work. They are all in it for the win (unlike the useless fuckers opposing them) and nothing else matters.
Disgusting cowards
HHS can’t regulate the general public, just Medicare and Medicaid contractors.
That’s all they need to regulate the general public. By SCOTUS’ logic it would be legitimate for HHS to mandate than anybody rendering care under Medicare/Medicaid must require all patients and their parent/guardian (if applicable) be vaccinated to receive care, or turn them away. Pretty much everybody will have contact with the medical system, if only for an accident, so this would in effect be a regulation on the general public.
Kavanaugh will be a lifetime of disappointment. Creature of and for DC area where he was born and raised.
Better than Garland, but learned nothing from his nomination experience.
At least we got OSHA reined in. One small temporary victory against the totalitarians.
Go back out tomorrow and keep on fighting.
Unfortunately SCOTUS didn’t consider the question of employer mandates generally, and employer liability for them. Those haven’t been reigned in yet, with the obvious consequences.
And to many people, Trump, who picked Kavanaugh, is not a disappointment? Trump picked a lot of poor people – Sessions, Rosenstein, Wray, Barr, for example – which choices IMO cost him re-election.
So this means that healthcare workers don’t have the mandate unless they work at a place that accepts medicare or medicaid. I predict a number of doctors will stop accepting those insurance programs.
The middle and lower class will get systematically worse healthcare now.
Harder than it looks. The hospitals demand doctors accept Medicare/Medicaid to affiliate. There’s a reason that doctors unaffiliated with any hospitals are really tough to find — they don’t stay in business long.
I do agree that there will have to be a lot of “build your own echo chambers” in our future if we ever want to free ourselves from the government tyranny that crept in over since FDR to strangle us now.
That’s pretty much all of them. Very few medical providers refuse government money.
So, a manufactured medical personnel shortage serves the interests of public health…..how?
It doesn’t. But, as in any socialist regime, cutting care to the elderly gets rid of the “useless eaters”.
They’ve already lowered the standards quite a bit to get into medical school
Well at least they got one decision right. Better than nothing, I guess.
“Every day, COVID–19 poses grave dangers to the citizens of this country—and particularly, to its workers.”
Untrue. Those of working age are barely threatened by COVID. The average age of COVID victim is over 80, and 75% of COVID victims have four or more co-morbidities – and almost certainly many of the people in this latter category are incapable of working.
I understand we can differ over the meaning or validity of a law, but I think it not unreasonable to demand that justices adhere to facts.
Covid must be a life-extending miracle virus, because most people don’t even make it to 80.
Close. The average age of COVID deaths is 75. Average life expectancy in America is 78.
I feel like I just got whupped along side the head with a penumbra that emanated from somewhere.
I see what you did there! Good reference to an utterly contrived “jurisprudence,” produced via the Justices’ narcissism and obnoxious fiat, and grounded not in the U.S. Constitution, but, the Justices’ own conjuring out of thin air.
As is usually the case, Thomas has it right. Pleased that Alito took the line that he did.
The Roberts court continues to be a mess.
Just another reason centralized and federalized healthcare should never exist.
BINGO!
Honestly this doesn’t really change the facts on the ground. The way overbroad OSHA mandate was shut down 6/3 and the dissent was from the 3 justices who had their ‘facts’ re Covid scrambled into incoherence.
The HHS mandate was always more likely to pass first muster based upon ’emergency’. That said the dissent by Alito is on point re creeping power by executive agencies. As to the real world application; medical employers can tell folks to get the jab. Those employees who haven’t done so are not likely to do it so then what? How many will walk? How much impact will a reduction in the workforce have?
IMO this is likely the high water mark for Covid mania. Realistically omicron is going to continue spreading crowding out delta. This will provide some level of natural immunity. Omicron is far less dangerous so hospitalization and deaths will continue to drop in comparison to previous strains.
Then at some point in late February or March it’s over for all practical purposes. Sure the branch covidians will fight a desperate rear guard action to keep the emergency alive but without hospitalization and deaths to support it that’s a tough job. Other than the Karen and power hungry public health officials and teacher unions practically no one wants this to go on. The people, especially in an election year, will demand an end.
I wouldn’t bet on COVID ever being “over”. This virus was designed with a furin cleavage site so that it can infect every animal that walks the Earth. It will continue to evolve in unexpected ways in animals and jump back to people. We are fortunate that Omicron is so mild and that everyone will build up some level of T-cell immunity from it. But there are bound to be future variants that escape prior immunity and are far more deadly than any variant experienced so far.
Covid mania will end. Bet the ranch on it. That is way different from Covid remaining as an endemic virus.
Covid won’t ever be over. Expect to be masked, forever, on mass transportation and any time you visit a doctor or hospital. Expect vaccine mandates and passports to insidiously grow until there is no practical means of avoiding them. They are already being expanded in Canada, especially in Quebec.
Will some areas go full totalitarian? Sure see Australia. Will public health bureaucrats seek to retain the emergency? Sure. Will some politicians seek to keep their authoritarian policies in place? Sure. Will some unions, teachers, flight attendants, seek to pressure their employer to keep masks and cards? Sure. Will some large businesses willingly go along with all this? Sure
However, those are largely dependent on where one lives, works and chooses to spend money. I don’t patronize those businesses nor live in an an authoritarian location so I am unaffected to a large extent. We don’t have mass transit in rural Alabama so that is not a concern. If you choose to remain in an area who’s political class has demonstrated totalitarian tendencies that’s on you. As is your choice of where to spend your money.
Beyond that is the national movement away from the policies of the past two years. Primary elections this spring for Congress should be decided in large part on the candidate’s stance on Rona mania. That seems a very effective litmus test of how much commitment they have to individual liberty. Choose wisely.
If OSHA doesn’t have the authority neither does CMS. Both are creations of Congress and Congress did not explicitly give either such power.
Kavanaugh is becoming an unreliable mini-Roberts.
Which should put a final mortal stake in the reputation of the Federalist Society as a reliable rater of conservative SCOTUS candidates.
Not true. Look at the HHS statute cited in the majority decision. It sure looks like Congress gave the secretary the power to make such regulations. Or at least that interpretation is plausible. The purported authorizing language in the OSHA statute is much harder to interpret that way.
Most hospitals were already requiring the Clot Shot, just as they have for decades for the abject-failure Flu Shot. They’ve been rounding up the un-vaxxed and running them out for the last year. My wife received a religious exemption, but the very next day they moved her desk to a basement cubicle next to the parking garage exit. I think they just forgot to hand her a flashlight and can of bugspray. She resigned. Screw hospitals anyway! They’ve outed themselves as Murder-4-Hire, collecting $30,000+ for each obeisant sheep they diagnose with Covid…and KILL!
“Most hospitals were already requiring the Clot Shot, just as they have for decades for the abject-failure Flu Shot.”
Flu shot fake urgency was grooming for the Clot Shot.
The Supreme Court only gives political decisions anymore, rule of law is dead. Seems to me they split the baby in half.
SCrOTUS may just have saved Biden’s life. I was ready to make an appeal to Heaven on behalf of the Tree of Liberty. I can’t be the only one thinking along these lines.
No Step on Snek
🐍
It seems reasonable. The health care worker thing would overturn stuff that you want to keep without any obvious difference from covid except medical facts that the court doesn’t want to be involved in adjudicating.
How can they possibly approve the stay for the OSHA and not the HealthCare/CMM mandate?? They both are the exact same overreach, just different agency guises. Typical Roberts, who seems to be grooming Kavanaugh to be his lackey. So frustrating.
Justice Alito’s dissent on the CMM decision is positively chilling!
No, they are not the same overreach at all. These are two completely different statutes.
As a licensed nurse, my concern over the CMS mandate was the failure to follow the administrative rules for rule making. The whole posting the proposed rule, comments, and whatnot.
The CMS is complicit with the failure to use therapeutics’ like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, to name a few.
I resigned my position in August because they were short staffed and wouldn’t grant a leave request for the last half of September. The Director, and another administrative type, came to me separately and suggested I just request emergency leave. How does that look? My leave request is denied so all of a sudden I have an emergency leave request? When the emergency was “they might, maybe, perhaps, institute new travel restrictions because of delta”? If I go back to work I’ll find a place which will escape the mandate craze.
Good luck
I believe you will find such a place soon.
”So … since the only anti-Wuhan shots available to Americans are all EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION, only – i.e. experimental drugs – this means that our vaunted SCOTASS has just declared that people can be forced to take part in medical experiments.
This is preposterous and evil. Not to mention retarded as all get-out, and as un-American as it gets.
My recollection is that the emergency use authorization refers to “immunization”, which it now appears that they do not do.
The only actual drug that has received FDA approval as a “vaccination” is Pfizer’s Cominarty, which is not even available to Americans (and, evidently, has never been). All of the other shots – including the other Pfizer shot that IS available – are all still under emergency use authorization. The only shots available to anyone in America are experimental drugs. That is what they are forcing on Americans.
Biden and the left like to act as if the FDA having approved Pfizer’s Cominarty automatically meant that all of the anti-Wuhan shots were “approved” but they were not. NONE of them were. And the approval for Cominarty was purely political, itself, but they weren’t even satisfied with getting away with that crime.
Is there any way this decision against medical workers can be revisited?
It’s still before the 6th circuit. This decision was only about a stay. The lower court ordered HHS to lift the mandate, HHS asked for a stay while the 6th circuit hears its appeal, the 6th refused, but SCOTUS agreed. So now the regulations remain in place while the 6th decides, and if it overturns them then HHS will appeal to the SCOTUS.
Good to know, thanks. Hopefully the problems with the vaccine will be considered in future considerations.
However, I don’t think new evidence or new arguments are allowed in appeals. So if they didn’t argue the experimental status of the vaccine already, they probably can’t now.
It appears the justices are ignorant of the fact that the vaccinated spread the virus just like the unvaccinated. Then they are ignorant of the fact that hospitals in California are firing healthy unvaxed workers but allowing vaxed workers with active Covid infection to keep working. The insane CMS rule and these justices are fine with that. So much for do no harm.
None of that is relevant. The only question is whether the two statutes in question authorize the regulations. The 6th circuit will decide that, but in the meantime the HHS is not enjoined from enforcing its regulation, while OSHA is enjoined from enforcing its.
Isn’t it relevant they used bogus information in their ruling?
If you take federal cash, you are guinea pig for all sorts of leftism.
If you are of the belief that abortion and gun control are going away under this majority, you have another thing coming
COVID–19 is a highly contagious, dangerous, and—especially for Medicare and Medicaid patients—deadly disease. The Secretary of Health and “Human Services determined that a COVID–19 vaccine mandate will substantially reduce the likelihood that healthcare workers will contract the virus and transmit it to their patients. 86 Fed. Reg. 61557–61558. He accordingly concluded that a vaccine mandate is “necessary to promote and protect patient health and safety” in the face of the ongoing pandemic. Id., at 61613.”
Wow. that is too, too painful to read.
First thing that stands out: COVID–19 is a highly contagious, dangerous, and—especially for Medicare and Medicaid patients—deadly disease.
Where is the evidence that it is more contagious for Medicare and Medicaid patients? And why isn’t it mentioned that there (supposedly) are different variants with varying levels of “danger.”
Second, who the hell is the The Secretary of Health and “Human Services to determine that a COVID–19 vaccine mandate will substantially do ANYTHING???
“Where is the evidence that it is more contagious for Medicare and Medicaid patients?”
Not really what that says. It says “more deadly,” and that’s common sense, isn’t it? Most Medicare patients are seniors, and COVID fatality (all variants) rises with age, just like any flu.
Now, Medicaid I can’t speak to, I gather that has wider age limits, but it’s also a much smaller program.
The virus is obviously more deadly for Medicare and Medicaid patients, because they’re older and in poorer health. And the HHS Secretary is the person Congress has authorized to make that determination. That is all the qualification he needs.
Medicaid patients are neither older nor in poorer health. They are just people leeching off of the government for health “insurance” – i.e. health care welfare.
As to the Wuhan virus being “more deadly” for medicare patients … Yes, they are older and in poorer health than the general population which means that EVERYTHING is more deadly to them. So what? Should cars be banned for seniors because they are more likely to die in crashes? Car accidents are “more deadly” for seniors. Of course, the silver lining is that your reasoning would allow the same car ban for medicaid welfare leeches, too … so, there’s that.
Your argument is silly. At best.
Medicaid is for low income people. I work a part-time job in the mental health field where the nonprofit accepts Medicaid. Most of the consumers are below Medicare age because the life expectancy of people with mental health disorders is about 53. Anyways, I am about to lose my job unless the company accepts my religious exemption. The director of the place where I work [the company is in multiple states] is not against me, but he will have to let me go. I told him that he needs to do what he has to. I am in my eighth year there. I worked all through the pandemic un-vaccinated.
Lazy a$$ decision by the Court based solely on the principle of people-pleasing.
So the CMS order only apples to recipients of Medicaid and Medicare insurance payments. If the recipient does not require it’s employees to take the vaccine, the recipient will cease to be eligible to receive such payments. The order does not require any employee to be vaccinated, only that the employee’s employer can no longer receive federal funds. Florida law prohibits termination of such an employee. Does that mean Florida Recipients must cease healthcare activities reimbursable under Medicare/Medicaid or be prosecuted for violation of FL law? Not sure supremacy applies here.
The court is just like the Government ALL MALE BOVINE SCAT! WORTHLESS AS IT STANDS!
I told everyone that Lovely Amy wasn’t what they thought she was.