The Supreme Court is hearing two COVID-19 vaccine mandate cases today: one from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for large employers, and one from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for health-care workers at facilities that take federal funding.
The SCJs, double vaxxed, boosted and masked in a courtroom off limits to the public will decide if public health mandates are Constitutional.
For anyone wondering why the administrative law argument matters in the big picture â not just covid â itâs because Congress routinely delegates rule-making authority to agencies. If you want to know why your drinking water isnât filled with sewage and heavy metals, itâs because Congress passed the Clean Water Act that instructed the EPA to establish rules and requirements to prevent contaminants from poisoning drinking water.
But if youâre a purveyor of sewage and heavy metals, you fucking hate those administrative rules. Theyâre a real crimp in your business model. They cost you money. Who is the fucking unelected bureaucrat in the EPA who decided I canât dump my heavy metal sewage in the river? Congress never said I couldnât dump that shit!
So the right-wing fever dream of administrative law is that itâs all bogus because only Congress has the authority to legislate. This is, to be clear, insane. Itâs a theory in which you can disregard all traffic signs on federal highways because Congress never authorized them to be placed in that particular location. But itâs what they want because big moneyed interests donât want to have to abide by any regulatory authorities whatsoever. In this case, itâs the OSHA safety rule saying employees gotta be vaccinated. In the next case, it will be an EPA rule literally saying you canât dump sewage in the river or sell leaded gasoline.
To paraphrase Jack Nicholsonâs Joker in one of those Batman movies, âThe Supreme Court needs an enema.â
Quick Summary:
Vaccine? Canât tell me what to do with my body.
Abortion? Only governmental mandates apply.
It used to be perfectly legal before those pesky regulations!
Obviously the result of this hearing should be to ban birth control.
I do not like this moment. The subject matter before the Court is serious indeed. Too serious for the moment we are in. We are in a plague time that has worn us down. Covid mandates are being weighed and mandates of all kinds are part of the mix. The elements present are a witchesâ brew. âO! And there be witches!â
Lovinâ me some Elena:
Who should make these kinds of decisions, Kagan asks? An agency comprised of professionals and experts that is âfully accountable to the Presidentâ? Or judges, âwho have not been elected,â who are accountable to no one and who have no experience in epidemiology?
Clarence Thomas Speaks Up
Justice Thomas hasnât been this chatty since his last issue of Adult Films Quarterly arrived in the mail.
I always figured he was quiet due to the hair lip he contracted from a Pepsi can.
ETA: @sonsofares just corrected my soda reference. Make that Coke can. I remember it as Pepsi. Then again, I donât like Pepsi, so that might be why.
Wherever that line is, this [order] is so far beyond that line,
So, the Supreme Court gets to decide where that line is not the experts? It is test and mask or get vaxxed, itâs not onerous. Apparently, he did not hear Justice Kagan.
The old adage which ends ââŚif his job depends on itâŚâ reverberates here and tragically harms and maims.
Randy Newman wrote it best, âBurning Riverâ.
Breyer Strikes A Note Of Incredulity: âHow Can It Possibly Be In The Public Interest?â To Stay Mandates
Iâm glad he got my tweet.
Kagan is bringing it.
Yes, pretty much. And even if Congress passed a law that aimed to phase out leaded gasoline or whatever, it always gave the responsible agency discretionary authority in how to make it work in practice. Like, okay, weâre going to stop manufacturing vehicles that run on leaded gas in two years, but new farm equipment can still be leaded-only for another five years, and weâre stopping all sales of leaded gas in 20 years except for intercontinental ballistic missiles. But Congress didnât actually say any of that stuff, so everybody except the ICBM manufacturers thinks the EPA has gone rogue on them.
That Ohio AG is so full of sâ. âIâm triple-vaxxed but still got COVID, therefore nobody needs a vaccineâ is some seriously bad logic.
The whole rule making process involves public comment. Industry and people are invited to raise questions or offer ideas well before the regs are finalized into law. It is a very representative form of governing where people and corps can ask their congress reps to influence any proposed law.
Or, maybe we should just let Louie Gohmert pull the law out of his vast expertise. That is to say whatever ALEC tells him. I guess SCOTUS did not do enough to destroy democracy with Citizens United.