What did he do? Everything, apparently:
The brewing culture war over vaccine mandates now threatens to boil over after the Biden administration set a January deadline for all employers with more than 100 employees to require shots or regular testing.
Damn Joe Biden. Damn him all to hell for starting that culture war. Why can’t Democrats stop doing that?
Why it matters: The planned mandates — which also include even more stringent standards for health care workers —would impact more than 100 million Americans, or more than two-thirds of the workforce.
Driving the news: Lawsuits from 15 GOP-led states rolled in mere hours after the administration last week laid out Jan. 4 as the deadline for vaccine mandates at employers with more than 100 workers.
A federal appeals court on Saturday stayed enforcement of the Biden administration’s private-employer vaccine mandate, contending it raises “grave statutory and constitutional issues”
Even a Democratic governor, Kansas’ Laura Kelly, released a statement criticizing the mandates as not the “most effective” or “correct” for her state.
Oh no! More Dems in disarray! Can’t they do anything right? One Democratic Governor criticized it.
The other side: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy took to ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday to defend the Biden administration’s mandate plan as a workplace safety and economic issue.
“It’s important we take every measure possible to make our workplaces safer,” he said. “It’s good for people’s health, it’s good for the economy, and that’s why these requirements make so much sense.”
That makes sense. It’s a safe, effective, accessible, free vaccine that will make it possible for us to return to some sense of normality. Oh wait. Some dumbshit football player doesn’t want to get one:
But, but, but: NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers took the mantle as a foil to employer vaccine mandates and COVID-19 protocol after it was revealed he was unvaccinated. He’d previously told reporters he was “immunized.”
He defended his decision not to get vaccinated on talk radio over the weekend and said the protocols were aimed at shaming people. “They’re purely trying to out and shame people,” Rodgers said.
Now the Green Bay Packers are facing new scrutiny around how they handled their COVID-19 protocols aimed at keeping players and staff safe.
He broke the rules and he cost his team the game on Sunday. He deserves to be shamed. But I’m going to guess he is a shameless right winger so I don’t know why he’s bellyaching.
Anyone who lies about being vaccinated is a sick piece of work.
The big picture: A recent Axios-Ipsos poll found six in 10 employed Americans agreed their employer should require COVID vaccinations.
But they do not agree on what should happen for those who don’t comply. Support for firing employees was low, at 14%.Americans are torn on whether nothing should happen (25%), employers should place them on unpaid leave (23%), or require them to work from home or an alternate location (20%), the poll showed.
Between the lines: As Axios’ Jennifer Kingson wrote, employer vaccine mandates have already impacted millions of workers, and — rather than leaving in droves — most have either decided to get the shot or have taken advantage of wiggle room offered by their employers.
But vaccine mandates are also sparking deep divides at some employers, as well as within families, as deadlines pass, the Washington Post reported over the weekend.
Whatever. Yes, some people will object to being vaccinated. But I don’t think the federal government mandate changes anything. We have to deal with these people who are acting like stubborn fools either way. So, since the other mandates have resulted in most people getting vaccinated and very few quitting, it’s obviously a good idea.
But according to the media, anything Joe Biden and the Democrats do these days is a disaster even though it isn’t. That narrative has taken hold and the longer they keep at it, the harder it will be to change it.
I just heard a Politico reporter on MSNBC say that the Democrats cannot run on the benefits they deliver to voters, they cannot run on Trump and the GOP’s turn to Trumpism and they cannot run on successfully defeating COVID. He says they have to run on the culture war issues (as Republicans define them) the implication being that they need to capitulate or they will lose everything.
This is all based on the two elections in Virginia and New Jersey which unfolded exactly as these off year elections always do. (Actually the win in New Jersey beat the odds.)
How typical that after Trump nearly destroyed the country (and plans on finishing the job if he gets back in) the Democrats are the ones paying the price for the country’s despair. Same as if ever was.