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April 15, 2022 - Epoch Times
13:16
Biden’s Employer Mandate REINSTATED By Appeals Court; Mask Mandate Extended; More Coming
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This is your daily Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that over the weekend, over this past weekend, I was at the Global COVID Summit in Houston, Texas.
And besides giving the opening speech, where I talked about the difficulty of reporting things honestly in this crazy age of censorship, well, I also took the opportunity to sit down and interview the scientists as well as the doctors who were there.
And today, we published the very first interview with Dr.
Richard Amerling, I'll throw a link to the interview.
It'll be down there in the description box below.
And let's begin today's actual discussion on the return of the mandates.
This here is the Grid Iron Club Dinner.
It was held three days ago at a fancy restaurant in Washington, D.C., and it was essentially an A-list party where Washington elites came together to have some fun and roast each other.
It's actually an annual event.
However, this year, well, there was an additional guest, Mr. Carlson.
COVID-19.
That's because after the swanky event concluded and all the dust settled, what wound up happening was that about 72 of the attendees contracted COVID, including some high-profile names like Attorney General Merrick Garland, Senator Suzanne Collins, as well as the New York City Mayor, Mr.
Eric Adams.
And this is, by the way, despite the fact that the attendees for this event, well, they were 100% vaccinated.
It was actually a prerequisite in order to just get in.
I already hear the sound of your eyes rolling to the back of your head, because why would such a story even qualify as news now in the spring of 2022?
I'm sure many of you are telling me right now in your head that, hey, listen, Roman, COVID is over.
Just move on.
In fact, along that line, I was scrolling through Instagram just yesterday, and I came across a story about how COVID cases are up in nearly half of the U.S. states.
And when you look at the comments, it's exactly what you'd expect.
It says, just stop.
No one cares.
Who cares?
Literally, no one gives a crap.
No one cares.
And so on and so forth.
There were quite literally hundreds of these comments.
And you know what?
I absolutely agree.
However, stay with me here for a moment, because these types of events, well, they're likely going to have very real-world effects on your life.
Because once again, government officials are beginning the murmurs of more shots, more masks, as well as more mandates, all coming to a city near you.
So let's unpack what's actually in place right now, what's in the works, as well as what's coming down the pipeline.
And let's start with the mandate on federal employees.
Now, you might remember that back in September of last year, in September of 2021, Joe Biden signed an executive order which mandated that all of the 3.5 million government employees must get vaccinated We're good to go.
Specifically, you might remember that back in January of this year, so just about three months ago, the federal mandate was stopped through an injunction that was issued by the federal judge in that particular case.
And so, from January up until now, the mandate has not been in effect.
However, on Thursday of last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 vote...
They actually went ahead and revived the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for all federal workers, meaning that federal employees employed by the executive branch are now once again required to get the shot or lose their jobs.
Although if you actually dig into their reasoning for why they made this decision, it seems that the appeals court actually made this decision based on a technicality.
Specifically, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, they ruled that the lower court, meaning the Texas federal court that initially issued the injunction that stopped the mandate in the first place, they did not have the jurisdiction to do so.
And so the appeals court decision didn't actually have anything to do with the legality of the mandate itself.
They only ruled that the lower court did not have the authority to stop it, and the federal employees who are challenging the mandate, they must go through a different legal channel to do so.
However, despite the fact that this is more of a procedural hurdle than anything, well, the effect is still the same.
The mandate is now once again active.
And according to a statement from the Biden administration, well, they are looking to begin implementation right away.
Here's, in fact, a statement from the Justice Department that was issued in regard to this lawsuit.
Quote, However, on the flip side, we here at the Epoch Times, we had a chance to speak with the group that's actually fighting this mandate in court, and they said that they will take all legal avenues available to them.
Here's specifically what the president of that group told us here at the Epoch Times via email.
Quote, Quote, Every week, both science and world events make these mandates seem unreasonable and unconscionable.
While COVID is getting less deadly, instability in Eastern Europe and even at our southern border is spiraling further out of control.
At the same time, the government is leading a witch hunt aimed at firing qualified diplomats, border patrol agents and other national security specialists who won't get vaccinated or won't disclose our status.
This is bad public policy and the American people know it.
Now, besides this federal mandate, there is also the vaccine mandate for military members, which is still firmly in place.
And even though there has been some small developments in regards to the religious objection requests in the Navy, with a federal judge recently ruling that the Navy cannot fire anyone who's awaiting a religious exemption, well, the reality is that the Department of Defense has granted a laughably small number of these particular requests.
In fact, according to the most recent data that I have access to, which comes all the way from February, the U.S. military has approved religious exemptions to their COVID vaccine mandate for exactly 15 service members.
That's out of approximately 16,000 service members who made a request.
15 exemptions out of 16,000 requests.
And furthermore, two days ago, an officer in the Air Force became the first member of the US military to actually face court-martial over his religious objection to the COVID vaccine.
That's because this particular officer, he went through all the official channels, he was rejected every time, but he still refused to take the shot based on his religious convictions.
Here's what the lawyer for this particular officer told a news agency.
This is next-level coercion on the part of the Air Force.
The letter of reprimand is a punishment, an adverse action, but it's a piece of paper that doesn't have an immediate effect.
Now you're punishing people with the threat of taking their rank away, their pay away, giving them extra duties and working long hours.
This is true punishment because of religious faith, and what is worse is they either have to get the vaccine, accept punishment that'll be harsh because they won't get a fair hearing or face a court-martial.
And then furthermore, outside of the military, the national vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, who are employed by companies which accept either Medicare or Medicaid funding, is still fully active and has cost tens of thousands of people their jobs.
In fact, just within the state of New York where we filmed this program, the vaccine mandate has impacted close to 34,000 unvaccinated healthcare workers who remain inactive to work, including at least 10,000 who have been fired.
That's, again, just in the state of New York alone.
And so in total, those are the three main mandates that are still in play.
The federal mandate, the military mandate, as well as the healthcare mandate.
But that's really not all.
Because over 1,000 colleges and universities across the country, they are also requiring that their in-person students be fully vaccinated against COVID in order to get instruction.
And besides just being fully vaccinated, some schools are actually requiring that the students have three doses of the vaccine in order to attend.
And soon, that might actually be four doses.
Because as a response to the different COVID outbreaks and to the rising cases and to the general failing of the vaccine, well, what was the FDA to do?
And the answer?
Well, it should be fairly obvious.
They did exactly what they have done before.
Last week, the FDA, once again, they bypassed their own vaccine advisory panel and they officially cleared the usage of the fourth shot of the mRNA vaccine.
And looking ahead to the future, one top official with the FDA, he stated rather unambiguously that a fifth shot of the vaccine is likely coming sometime in the fall.
Here's specifically what Dr.
Peter Marks, who works with the FDA, here's what he said in this matter.
Quote, It's possible that people will need to get another vaccine.
And then, besides all these vaccine mandates, well, masks are coming back again.
Although, frankly, here in New York, at least in the subways, they never really left.
However, in the city of Philadelphia, well, they're joining in on the action.
That's because two days ago, Philly became the first major U.S. city to actually reinstate their indoor mask mandate.
And then, likewise, the mask mandate on federal travel, meaning on planes as well as public transportation, well, it was set to expire on April 18th, so just four days from now.
However, just yesterday, the CDC came out and they extended that mandate for another two weeks.
Here's specifically what the CDC released as a part of their statement explaining why they did so.
And so as you can see, despite the fact that Americans seem to be more ready than ever to move on from COVID, well, government officials appear to have other plans.
That's because on top of everything that we have already discussed, Dr. Fauci had an interview with the BBC, and during which he hinted at the possibility of reimposing national lockdowns, although he made a point of saying that he does not really want to use that word.
Here's specifically what he said to the BBC about two weeks ago.
Quote, I don't want to use the word lockdowns.
That has a charge element to it.
But I believe that we must keep our eye on the pattern of what we're seeing with infections.
Having said that, we need to be prepared for the possibility that we would have another variant that would come along.
And then, if things change and we do get a variant that does give us an uptick in cases and hospitalization, we should be prepared and flexible enough to pivot toward going back, at least temporarily, to a more rigid type of restrictions, such as requiring masks and door.
If you'd like to go through the details of what we can look forward to, I'll throw the links to everything that we discussed in today's episode.
It'll be down in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And all ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm so this video can be shared out to ever more people.
And if you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe to this channel, that way you can get our honest news coverage delivered directly to your YouTube feed every single weekday.
And that was...
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Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, if you'd like to check out an awesome interview between myself and Dr.
Richard Amerling about how the government has essentially stripped America's doctors of their autonomy, well, you can find it over on Epic TV. Here's the trailer for me.
The guideline movement is dangerous because once you, my colleagues, because these are my colleagues writing these guidelines, once you put out a guideline and you give it the authority of our organization, authorities can take these and use them as an enforceable standard.
And then you're going to be paid based on how well you follow these guidelines or worse.
And now doctors really don't have the latitude, if they're working for one of these corporations, to go outside the guidelines.
They have become enslaved.
They must do what they're told.
And this is also something that I've been worrying about for many years, that the loss of physician autonomy would immediately follow adoption of the guideline movement and also the centralized control of medicine, which is really what we are experiencing.
If you'd like to check out that phenomenal exclusive episode, well, the link will be right there at the very top of the description box.
I hope you click on it.
I hope you check it out.
I hope you watch that interview, as well as subscribe to Epic TV, so that way you can join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful world through honors journalism that is based in truth and tradition.
And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from the Epic Times.
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