None of the 3 clowns Trump appointed to the Supreme Court-- Gorsuch, Kavanaugh or Barrett-- will ever be a John Marshall Harlan who in 1905 wrote the majority (7-2) opinion in Jacobson v Massachusetts, upholding the authority of states to promulgate and enforce compulsory vaccination laws to protect the general public. Harlan wrote, in the midst of a smallpox epidemic, that "in every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand" and that "[r]eal liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own [liberty], whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others."
Biden got tough last night: "We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us. [The unvaccinated minority] can cause a lot of damage, and they are." here's his full 6-prong attack plan (so you can get the real version rather than Fox's and Trump's self-serving versions of it). For one thing, it will be:
Today, the most craven of political hacks, are hoping to advance their own careers-- exclusively inside the Republican Party, since normal people overwhelmingly support the pandemic mandates being promulgated by Biden and their state and local governments. Take Ohio sociopath J.D. Vance, for example, who is willing to do or say anything to prove he's as far right and extreme as the other kooks in the race, especially Josh Mandel. Today Vance is openly advocating sedition and insisting Biden is an authoritarian-- and Vance certainly knows better; he's pandering-- and calling for "mass civil disobedience."
And below is the tweet from failed South Carolina governor Henry McMaster whose state is only 44% vaccinated and where the reddest counties are doing far worse than that:
Saluda Co.- 24% fully vaccinated (Trump 67.0%)
Cherokee Co.- 26% fully vaccinated (Trump 71.4%)
Chesterfield Co.- 29% fully vaccinated (Trump 59.8%)
Calhoun Co.- 31% fully vaccinated (Trump 51.9%)
Laurens Co.- 31% fully vaccinated (Trump 65.6%)
South Carolinians will wake up one day and be very sorry that Henry McMaster has decided to bring his state with him to the gates of hell, as he so dramatically put it.
Another Republican governor, Phil Scott (R-VT), who has been far more successful than McMaster in protecting his state's residents from the pandemic, praised Biden's announcement: "I appreciate the President’s continued prioritization of vaccination and the country’s recovery as we move forward. As Vermont’s experience shows, vaccines work and save lives. They are the best and fastest way to move past this pandemic." Vermont's population is 68% fully vaccinated, best stats in the country. As of Thursday, McMaster and his ideological, anti-science policies had infected 779,898 South Carolinians and killed 11,050. His state is in the Top Ten of most cases per million residents-- 151,474/million. Meanwhile Scott's policies have resulted in the fewest cases per million anywhere in the country-- 47,418, and just 283 Vermonters have died. There have been just 29,588 cases overall. Yesterday, one person in Vermont died; 54 more died in South Carolina. Even a South Carolina Republican can probably figure out which stat is better and which is worse-- and what it might mean for themselves and their families.
Meanwhile Trumpist RNC chair, bird-brain Ronna Romney McDaniel wants to take Biden's sensible vaccine mandates back to Court, where sensible vaccine mandates were already decided over a century ago. Murderer Kristi Noem, probably responsible former COVID deaths than any other person in America aside from Trump and DeathSantis, is also suing, running to Sean Hannity yesterday to babble her partisan nonsense: "In South Dakota, we’re going to be free. ... We will take action. My legal team is already working."
A poll that NORC did for AP last month showed that 55% of Americans favored requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with just 21% who were opposed. Similar majorities backed vaccine mandates for health care workers, teachers working at K-12 schools and workers who interact with the public, as at restaurants and stores. And then there was this in July from The Economist, a reminder that Republicans are walking around among us and each one has a vote, just like a normal person does.
biden did NOT get tough. He did NOT cite nor even go near Jacobsen v. Mass.
His "mandate" has so many qualifications that it's almost moot.
And the biggest pussy move was in allowing the exception to vaccination of testing weekly. Testing won't prevent the spread. It will only identify that it HAS spread.
The federal and health care givers stuff was already in place granularly.
But, as lifetime political pussies go... it was better than I would have expected. Symbolic but pointlessly ineffective.