The Supreme Court's Incoherent COVID Mandate Rulings

pjmedia.com ^ | 1/14/2022 1005 hrs et | victoria taft

[rktman]

Here’s the quick and dirty take of the U.S. Supreme Court’s two COVID-shot mandate decisions on Thursday: If one works for a private company with more than 100 employees, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) may not order them to get jabbed with a COVID shot, but if you’re a health care worker at a health facility that receives Medicare and Medicaid funding, you can. Apparently, Americans cease to have bodily integrity and religious rights if they work at hospitals that serve Medicare and Medicaid patients, but not if they work for private companies. There’s a word for that: incoherent.

This duplicity has Chief Justice John Roberts’ fingerprints all over it.

Americans who believe in freedom breathed a sigh of relief that the nation’s highest court retained the stay issued on OSHA’s rule forcing employers to require them to get a COVID shot. It turns out, the justices reasoned, that if Congress or states don’t explicitly give OSHA the power to order mandatory shots, and there was plenty of congressional intent and action proving they didn’t want it, the executive branch agency can’t. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s “work-around” for Congress by issuing vaccine mandate edicts throughout agencies didn’t work.

The unsigned majority opinion stopped the implementation of the rule until there’s a full appeal to the Supreme Court. The court, in a per curiam ruling, said that “permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life — simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock — would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”

[rktman]

Kind of a stretch with the health care workers and medicare/medicaid money as the kicker. It still is outside the bounds of brandon's authority. Or his sub-departments. Geez. Guess all them hahavahd and yale edumucations were a lot of expense with little return.

[Wuli]

Thomas was I believe the only one fully coherent on both cases - no, it’s not in the law and if it were the law might be Constitutionally questionable.

[patriotspride]

Kavanaugh also sided with the weasels on this one .......

Wonder what his logic was. Seems to me that if the govt cant dictate to a business that it shouldn’t be able to dictate to anything other something that is totally government funded by medicare/medicaid.

The health care workers of America who oppose the jab for their own health reasons have to be wondering “ do I need a new job” or are their hospitals anywhere I can work at ?

[subterfuge]

The rulings of the SC are increasingly incoherent.

[teeman8r]

thomas is a national treasure. we had better find another thomas soon.

[Pollard]

What about Natural Immunity?

That's the incoherent part. All of the sudden after 10s of 1000s of years, it no longer exists.

We just got over COVID and now my wife who works at a nursing home will have to choose between jab or job. I set her up with an appt for mAb infusion. I stumbled across something today. The CDC recommends waiting at least 90 days after mAb before getting the vax. https://www.abc10.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/vaccine/vaccine-question-how-long-to-wait/103-b22ae306-8acd-4201-8258-695760277473 Will that be taken into consideration in the mandate? I was actually searching for info on how long to wait after having had COVID. Israel, EU, UK say 90 days and that prior COVID counts as one of two mRNA shots. US, nope. They talked about one shot for prior COVID last year but nothing came of it.

What would have happened if I didn't run across that mAb - wait 90 days info? Wife's likely loaded up with antibodies and maybe spike protein. At least we have ammo for her to wait 2-3 months, I think.

[V_TWIN]

We’re fortunate they didn’t side with brandon on both of ‘em

[Luke21]

Biden fought like hell to keep him off the court.

[Reno89519]

On the positive side, the Supreme Court says that the government can Attach strings on money it gives. So maybe that can be used to say that no abortions can be performed at places that get federal money.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

I always get my medical advice from middle level, unelected politicians .../s

[Pollard]

FL is going to fight it but they have to figure out how. I hope they do and that Missouri follows suit.

DeSantis: “So if you’re unvaccinated, naturally immune, and uninfected, they fire you. But if you’re COVID positive and vaxxed…going back on the job…absolutely insane, especially given the ineffectiveness of these shots to actually stop transmission.”

https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1482032286426038272

[ScottfromNJ]

“Thomas was I believe the only one fully coherent on both cases - no, it’s not in the law and if it were the law might be Constitutionally questionable.”

Maybe that opens the door for the healthcare workers to challenge on constitutional grounds since the scope of the ruling was limited to lack of congressional authorization?

[Pollard]

19 of the @SenateGOP chose to punt defense of healthcare workers to SCOTUS rather than vote against funding CMS vax mandates. On February 18th, we vote again. Will at least 10 of those 19 stand up for healthcare workers or not? Simple question. #DefundTyranny #DefundCMSMandates

https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1482020339748159493

---

Why hasn’t the Senate voted on SJRes32 to overturn the CMS mandate yet???

There are still 17 Republicans who haven’t co-sponsored.

Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Johnson
Kennedy
Moore Capito
Murkowski
Portman
Romney
Sasse
Thune
Toomey
Young

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1481720996545515526

[rktman]

Republicrats with financial gains at risk?

[Political Junkie Too]

I thought I read somewhere that a prior Supreme Court had ruled that vaccination policies are entirely a state issue because there is no interstate aspect to a person having a job, going to a workplace, going to the hospital, or going home while sick.

Therefore, the federal government could not make federal claims on a person's need to be vaccinated -- it had to come from the states as a local issue.

I could be recalling this wrong, but that's what I remember reading somewhere.

-PJ

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

The article is a bit misleading. The decision on the OSHA case was not based on whether the federal government as an entity has the power to impose a mandate. It was whether or not Congress had delegated that authority to OSHA, and Roberts and Kavanaugh concluded that it had not. They reached the opposite conclusion in the Medicaid case, which isn't inherently contradictory because they are two different statutes.

Of course, you could always take a different legal position on whether or not Congress itself has that authority, in which case both cases should have come out the same. That's what I'd have done, but Roberts and Kavanaugh obviously disagreed.

[rfp1234]

He shall be known to posterity as “Roberts the Incoherent”.

[hamburger hill]

[Sequoyah101]

So let me get this right, Everybody but health care workers and military people are have Constitutional protections and the rest are fair game for tyranny and dictatorship?

What’s the deal, giving plugs some mice to play with?

How about we just eliminate the USSC for all the good it does?

[Wuli]

On the mandate on the health care workers there seems to have been NOT a majority of Conservative justices willing to question the Constitutionality of the law (the law(s) that delineate the obligations and powers of the CMS agency), and only a minority of justices that questioned the specifics of law(s) as to permitting a vaccination mandate on health care workers through the CMS agency. The other Conservative dissenters besides Thomas only questioned the law(s) - that CMS had no legal mandate in the law(s) from Congress, but they were not questioning (as Thomas did) whether Congress could give such a mandate to CMS.