Federal Appeals Court Halts Biden Jab Mandate - For Now

P. Gardner Goldsmith | November 8, 2021
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A three-judge panel of the Fifth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Saturday granted a temporary injunction against execution of Joe Biden’s mandate that all businesses with 100 or more employees get their staff injected with the COVID vaccine or subject their workers to weekly mandatory testing for a virus they may or may not even have.

The injunction comes swiftly, upon the request of numerous states attorneys general and numerous private interests.

Breitbart’s Paul Bois reports:

The ruling from a three-judge panel on Saturday resulted from a stay sought by the states of Texas, Utah, Mississippi and South Carolina, as well as several businesses that opposed the Biden plan. The states and businesses filed a petition of review of the agency action, which goes directly to a federal appeals court instead of a one-judge federal district trial court.

The agency to which Bois refers is OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which falls under the umbrella of lockdown-lover, former Boston Mayor, now Labor Secretary, Marty Wash. What's more, the fundamental question of the anti-constitutional nature of the Labor Department and OSHA was not addressed by the panel - just this specific Biden mandate.

As Lexi Lonas notes, for The Hill:

OSHA’s rule includes sending agents to inspect businesses to determine if they are abiding by the mandate. If a business is found to not be in compliance, a company could be fined $136,532.

That is PER VIOLATION. If all staff at a business employing, say, 100 people, are not jabbed and willfully ignore weekly testing requirements – even if those staff previously have been infected and are carrying antibodies – that $136,532 can be multiplied one-hundred fold to $13,653,200.

Indicating that this not only is an unconstitutional, tyrannical threat of force by Biden, it’s a towering money grab, as well.

But, of course, that is the undeniably unethical nature of government. It can’t function without compelling you to pay whatever the politicians and bureaucrats want.

As Lonas observes about the judgement:

The appeals court ruled there are ‘grave statutory and constitutional’ (problems) with the OSHA rule.

Well said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took to Twitter shortly after the court released the news, and he stated:

Yesterday, I sued the Biden Admin over its unlawful OSHA vax mandate. WE WON. Just this morning, citing ‘grave statutory and constitutional issues,’ the 5th Circuit stayed the mandate. The fight is not over and I will never stop resisting this Admin’s unconstitutional overreach!

But, again, it must be stressed that only the anti-constitutional thinking behind this specific rule is being questioned, not the anti-constitutional creation of the Labor Department (going back to Taft) and OSHA (going back to Nixon).

This can be seen, in part, by checking the major points of contention brought by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and other Attorneys General, which Bois observes in his Breitbart piece:

“’Its unlawful mandate will cause injuries and hardship to working families, inflict economic disruption and staffing shortages on the States and private employers, and impose even greater strains on struggling labor markets and supply chains,’ a filing from a coalition of attorneys general led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt alleged.”

Indeed, the focus is, first, on “lawfulness” relating only to whether prior statute on the federal level allows Biden, OSHA, and the Labor Department to get away with this, and, second, on injuries and hardships – both of which are conditions for which judges look when injunctions are requested.

Related: US Labor Secretary on OSHA Vaccine Mandate for Private Businesses: 'This Is Not a Mandate' | MRCTV

Certainly, the OSHA attack fits on those fronts. It is not lawful in any statutory way, and it inflicts harm on innocent people simply for trying to run their businesses. It is being imposed without the usual public comment period of OSHA mandates, and it offers no religious exemption.

And Bois brings up two more key points. First:

The ruling does not create legal precedent, but it is an important victory for challengers as it could signal which way the court would go on the merits as the case moves forward. The White House has not yet commented on the ruling.

And he observes:

In a final item that bodes ill for the Biden administration, the panel of the New Orleans-based appeals court wrote that all future cases, appeals, motions, and petitions on this issue in that jurisdiction shall be assigned to that same three-judge panel under this docket number. The judges are Edith Jones – an appointee of President Ronald Reagan and one of the most respected and brilliant conservative federal appeals judges in the nation, and Kyle Duncan and Kurt Engelhardt, both appointed by President Donald Trump.

Let no one wonder why people fight so hard to see their preferred legal minds put into court positions.

The existence of the Labor Department has not been struck down, of course, but this is a major blow against Biden, and for the vestiges of freedom we have left to conduct free, peaceful commercial interaction as employers and employees.

And, perhaps, it will open more eyes to the threat the Labor Department always poses to our freedom.

Related: More Than 20 Republican Governors, AGs, Rise Against Biden’s Jab-Mandate | MRCTV

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