XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics.trump   
   XPost: alt.feminism.d, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: remailer@domain.invalid   
      
   The US Supreme Court has blocked President Joe Biden's rule   
   requiring workers at large companies to be vaccinated or masked and   
   tested weekly.   
      
   The justices at the nation's highest court said the mandate exceeded   
   the Biden administration's authority.   
      
   Separately they ruled that a more limited vaccine mandate could   
   stand for staff at government-funded healthcare facilities.   
      
   The administration said the mandates would help fight the pandemic.   
      
   President Biden, whose approval rating has been sagging, expressed   
   disappointment with the decision "to block common-sense life-saving   
   requirements for employees".   
      
      
   The puzzle of America's record Covid hospital rate   
   Former President Donald Trump cheered the court's decision, and said   
   vaccine mandates "would have further destroyed the economy".   
      
   "We are proud of the Supreme Court for not backing down," he said in   
   a statement. "No mandates!"   
      
   The administration's workplace vaccine mandate would have required   
   workers to receive a Covid-19 shot, or be masked and tested weekly   
   at their own expense.   
      
   It would have applied to workplaces with at least 100 employees and   
   affected some 84 million workers. It was designed to be enforced by   
   employers.   
      
   Opponents, including several Republican states and some business   
   groups, said the administration was over-stepping its power with the   
   requirements, which were introduced in November and immediately drew   
   legal challenges.   
      
   In the end, Joe Biden's vaccine mandates stood or fell based on   
   judicial interpretations of federal statute, not principles of   
   individual liberty or appeals to the greater good.   
      
   According to a majority of the Supreme Court, Mr Biden had the law   
   on his side when ordering healthcare workers to get vaccinated, but   
   using a 51-year-old workplace safety statute to implement a   
   vaccine-or-test requirement on all large employers was a bridge too   
   far.   
      
   Once again, the current balance of the Supreme Court comes into   
   sharp relief, with four reliably conservative justices, three   
   reliable liberal ones and two - Chief Justice John Roberts and   
   Justice Brett Kavanaugh - at the ideological fulcrum.   
      
   This mixed judicial bag is just the latest setback for a   
   presidential Covid-response plan that frequently has seemed a step   
   behind the latest twists in the pandemic. The administration was   
   slow to encourage boosters and caught flat-footed by the Omicron-   
   induced surge in demand for testing.   
      
   Now Mr Biden will either have to convince Congress to act on   
   mandates - an unlikely prospect given the brick wall the rest of his   
   agenda keeps hitting in the Senate - or figure out new ways to   
   shepherd the nation out of the pandemic gloom.   
      
   line   
   In a 6-3 decision, the justices agreed with that argument, saying   
   that the workplace safety rule for large employers was too broad to   
   fall under the authority of the Department of Labor's Occupational   
   Health and Safety Administration to regulate workplace safety.   
      
   "Covid-19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting   
   events, and everywhere else that people gather," the court's   
   majority wrote.   
      
   "That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day   
   dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of   
   communicable diseases."   
      
   "This is no 'everyday exercise of federal power,'" they added. "It   
   is instead a significant encroachment on the lives - and health - of   
   a vast number of employees."   
      
   The more limited rule concerning more than 10 million staff at   
   healthcare facilities that receive government funding did not pose   
   the same concern, they decided, by 5-4.   
      
   That said imposing conditions on recipients of public money fit   
   "neatly" into the authority of the Secretary of Health and Human   
   Services.   
      
   The rulings come as some parts of the policies were due to go into   
   effect this week. The court heard arguments in the case on Friday.   
      
   The rulings reflected the political make-up of the court, which now   
   has a majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents.   
      
   The court's three liberal justices opposed blocking the vaccine   
   mandate, saying such a decision "stymies the federal government's   
   ability to counter the unparalleled threat that Covid-19 poses to   
   our nation's workers."   
      
   That all the time we have for the three voices of cowardice.   
      
   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59989476   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)