Mandate Madness

As we reported yesterday, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, announced it has suspended enforcement of Joe Biden's vaccine mandate pending the outcome of further legal challenges. 

OSHA's retreat came in the wake of a blistering opinion and nationwide injunction issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Now here's an update on the status of the pending legal challenges.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals based in Cincinnati, Ohio, was selected at random to hear arguments that consolidate dozens of legal challenges from around the country. (It was literally like a Bingo or lottery drawing with ping pong balls in a drum.) 

From a constitutional, limited government perspective, that's good news. Nearly 70% of the judges on the court are Republican appointees. Donald Trump appointed more than a third of them. So, the odds are good that the three-judge panel hearing the case will be a 2-to-1 or perhaps even a 3-to-0 conservative majority. 

But there are no guarantees. The selection of judges is also random. It's possible, although statistically unlikely, that the panel could be three of the court's five liberal judges. Regardless of the outcome in the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court is expected to make the final decision.

While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are too clueless to appreciate it, the nationwide injunction ordered by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week blocking the vaccine mandate is actually a "parachute" for them. They were headed toward a cliff and they were prepared to take the country right over it. 

If the courts had not stepped in quickly, we were about to have huge shortages of truck drivers, warehouse workers, etc. In short, everything the Biden gang has messed up in the supply chain crisis would have been put on steroids.  

By the way, that crisis has been getting worse, not better, since Biden announced his big "fix" four weeks ago.

While they are probably scheming to come up with another "ultimate work-around," as Biden's chief of staff put it, they ought to be happy that they just dodged a huge disaster.