Americans across the country are standing up to the tyranny from the White House over so-called “vaccine mandates.” Despite Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s assertion that “we know federal law overrides state law,” and the assertion that the OSHA can “preempt inconsistent state and local requirements that ban or limit employers’ authority to require vaccination” by providing the “necessary legal authorization,” vaccine mandates from the White House are not legal.[i]
The latest razzle-dazzle came in the form of an “Emergency Temporary Standard” from OSHA, requiring private companies with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination, or require all unvaccinated workers mask, and test weekly at their own expense. Likewise, mandates have been ordered for anyone directly under federal contract such as military, health care, employees and contractors. In a move that conveniently ignored the uprising of those not vaccinated by previous deadlines, the White House consolidated all vaccine requirements to the same day: January 4, 2022.
The Emergency Temporary Standard (a.k.a. “mandate”), published November 5, 2021 in the Federal Register, was intended to both to trigger the mandate to go into effect immediately, and start the legal process to turn the temporary standard into a formal rule.
Instead of immediate compliance, the White House was met with instant resistance. Business owners and state governments across the country were ready to go to court. Within hours of publication, 27 states sued, challenging the White House in multiple jurisdictions. The Fifth Circuit (which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) acted quickly to stop the illegal mandate from being imposed through OSHA in response to a lawsuit brought by a Louisiana grocery chain owner.[ii] [iii] The White House is calling for a consolidated appeal to a circuit “chosen at random” rather than answering in all jurisdictions.
Walk-outs are taking place across the country, both organized and spontaneous, protesting the mandate. Some have gained national attention, some have been kept out of the news.
Americans are using all avenues to say NO to Covid tyranny. You can act now to resist OSHA’s horrible overreach by public comment in the Federal Register. These comments must be taken into account before OSHA attempts to make this rule permanent, and if ignored, they must provide a legal basis for further court intervention.
Your comment can be as short or as long as you want. The most important thing about using your voice is that you use it and add to the thousands who have already commented on this administration’s unacceptable overreach into American privacy and states’ rights. OSHA is seeking comments specifically about:
-
- The integrity of the data used throughout the ETS, updated data, or conflicting data
- Implementation of a mandate for employers with less than 100 employees
- A finding that COVID-19 poses a significant risk to employees
- Natural immunity
- Experience with vaccine mandates already in place in the workforce
- COVID-19 testing and employee removal
- Mask policies and other controls
- Educational materials on encouraging vaccination
- Feasibility of implementing a mandate
- Health impacts of a mandate
If you would like to comment on one of these topics, you can easily download the ETS in pdf form at THIS LINK and do a search for the terms above, or look at the Request for Comments that starts on page 61403. OSHA asks specific questions on each topic, such as, “How should scope of the rule change to address the significant risk posed by COVID-19 in the workplace?”
Importantly, OSHA also asks: “Is there additional scientific information on this topic that OSHA should consider as it determines whether to proceed with a permanent rule?”
Throughout the ETS, OSHA points out limitations of data upon which to base decisions, especially in evaluating data about natural immunity. It is worth reading through section d. on page 61421 regarding the extensive issues, conflicts, and limitations of data observed by OSHA for a comprehensive overview on just how flawed and questionable the data around immunity is. Here is one snippet:
“RT–PCR and antibody testing are powerful tools with many clinical and research applications. However, the application of these tools cannot determine what degree of protection a particular individual has against SARS– CoV–2 without a great deal of additional study concerning thresholds establishing individual immunity. Therefore, these tools are not yet able to assist OSHA in making more nuanced findings about which workers who had COVID–19 previously are at grave danger. There is no established threshold to determine full protection from reinfection or a standardized methodology to determine infection severity or immune response… the use of the Ct threshold to approximate viral loads and infer disease severity is unreliable. As the FDA notes, the same is true about antibody tests, which are considered to be poor indicators for individuals to use to determine whether they are protected from reinfection.”
The basis for the emergency standard, and therefore bypassing formal rulemaking including comments from the public, is a finding by OSHA that workers face “grave danger” in the workplace. Not surprisingly, OSHA relies heavily upon CDC for data on exposure, safety, hospitalizations and deaths. Interestingly, OSHA itself is pointing out the weakness of the data it is forced to rely upon, and asking the public to comment.
Note also, for the standard to go from being temporary to being a rule, the threshold is lower, a finding that Covid exposure poses a “significant risk” in the workplace, and OSHA would like comment on that as well.
With every assertion of imaginary power from the White House, it becomes more and more important to use our voices. The White House is not going to stop. Through the Reconciliation Bill the Biden Administration is attempting to beef up OSHA by increasing violation fines ten-fold, and increasing its budget to hire more investigators. The Department of Labor is attempting to strip three states of their authority over workplace safety.[iv] Mandates for companies with less than 100 employees are on the horizon—OSHA asked for comment about implementation, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told Americans it would not be ruled out. Likewise, deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated the administration would not rule out vaccine mandates for domestic travel.[v] She went on, “So, we say this all the time … everything’s on the table.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence, when government ignores “consent of the governed” to destroy unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it” and create a new government “most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. echoed this message, proclaiming “[O]ne has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
The White House has only the power we give it. Sovereign states gave limited and specific powers to a centralized federal government after declaring independence from tyranny. What wasn’t given was explicitly reserved through the 10th Amendment, chief among them, police powers for health and welfare. “Throughout our history the several states have exercised their police powers to protect the health and safety of their citizens. Because these are primarily, and historically, matters of local concern, the states traditionally have had great latitude under their police powers to legislate as to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons.”[vi]
Further, the power to make, enforce, and judge laws was intentionally separated because the founding fathers knew from experience that tyranny was the sum of all three in one place.
Executive agencies such as OSHA, CDC, FDA, and NIH show us they were right.
These agencies have shown us that their hands are tied. They continuously point out flawed or missing data, and supporting the administration’s push for mandates anyway. We are the ones who must hold the line. We must join the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are standing up and saying No to medical mandates. We will show the White House that we are not afraid to do our Constitutional duty to reject bad government and build the world we want to see.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row]
Steps You Can Take
Step One: Join your voice with the tens of thousands of people who have contacted their representatives to let them know Americans stand against government overreach.
Step Two: Visit our Resources page for ready-made, easy-to-use advocacy materials!
Hidden Toggle
References & Sources
[ii] Tomes, Nancy J. “American Attitudes Toward the Germ Theory of Disease: Phyllis Allen Richmond Revisited.” Journal of the History of Medicine. vol. 52, Jan. 1997, pgs 17-50.
[iii] https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/download/43980/43701
[iv] https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/antitoxin-contamination
[v] To be clear, Jacobson regarded states’ general police powers to make laws for health. The case should not apply in questions of federal mandates because the federal government does not have a generalized police power, only specific enumerated powers granted through the Constitution.
[vi] Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo, 592 US ____(2020), Gorsuch, J., concurring.
[vii] Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak, 591 US ____ (2020)
