April 21, 2022 - Epoch Times
16:01
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| Time | Text |
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| Good evening. | |
| As you have likely heard, two days ago, a federal judge over in Florida issued a court order and she officially rescinded the federal government's mask mandate on travel. | |
| Although, shortly afterwards, the Biden administration came out and they said that they will very likely be appealing that decision as soon as the CDC gets back to them. | |
| Now, let me back up for a moment and set the stage for you to give you the context of what's really happening here. | |
| One day after taking office, Joe Biden signed an executive order, specifically Executive Order No. | |
| 13998, which ordered the CDC to develop a mask mandate and for the other federal agencies like the TSA to get ready to implement that mandate. | |
| This particular order, it covered things like airports, public transportation, buses, trains, and so on. | |
| The CDC then dutifully got to work, following the science, of course, rather than the edicts of politicians, and nine days later, on January 29th of 2021, they officially came out with a mask mandate. | |
| Among other things, it required that almost everyone above the age of two must wear a mask in airports and on airplanes, with the only exception being that you can pull down your mask to take a bite of food before pulling it back up again. | |
| Now for the people who are actually following the scientific studies surrounding these masks, well, it wasn't necessarily clear to them that these mask mandates were having the intended effect. | |
| However, for a very long time, the critics of these mask mandates, they were being labeled as conspiracy theorists, even though the data appeared to show that the types of masks that people generally wore didn't really do much against COVID. However, the dam really started to show cracks back in December. | |
| That was when this woman here, Dr. | |
| Leanna Nguyen, gave a highly publicized TV interview. | |
| Now, Dr. | |
| Nguyen is not only the former president of Planned Parenthood, but she is also a regular guest on CNN, where she often speaks on matters of health. | |
| And back in December, she went on CNN to give her opinion on masks, an opinion that I should mention that just a few weeks prior was generally considered by the mainstream media to be a conspiracy theory. | |
| Here's what you said. | |
| I would say that if you choose to go, make sure that you're vaccinated and boosted. | |
| Make sure that you're wearing a mask, even though it's outdoors. | |
| There are lots of people packed around you wearing a three-ply surgical mask. | |
| Don't wear a cloth mask. | |
| Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. | |
| However, it's worth mentioning that since that interview, the theater she described has continued on public transit throughout the entire country. | |
| Because whether you're on an airplane, taking an Uber, riding an Amtrak, or you're taking the New York City subway, well, you are still required to wear a mask, with almost everyone wearing a cloth mask. | |
| In fact, right here in New York City, you occasionally have transit workers standing on the corner handing out cloth masks. | |
| The same masks I should mention that come in boxes, which on the very bottom of them clearly say that they do not protect against COVID. However, many people were putting up with it because they understood that this mask mandate was coming to a close soon anyway. | |
| That's because in and of itself, the federal mask mandate was set to expire on April 18th. | |
| However, last week, the Biden administration made two simultaneously astonishing moves. | |
| Because on the one hand, the CDC very suddenly decided to extend the mask mandate, citing the fact that they believe COVID is still a danger to society. | |
| However, on that very same week, the Biden administration also announced that they would be scrapping Title 42, which was the emergency health measure keeping illegal migrants from coming into the country due to COVID. And so you see, in the very same week, the Biden administration both extended the mask mandate for Americans because COVID was still an issue, but at the same time, they scrapped Title 42 for illegal aliens because they said it was no longer necessary. | |
| However, this mandate did not last for long. | |
| That's because, as I mentioned earlier, a federal judge over in Florida issued a court order saying that the mask mandate exceeded the CDC's statutory authority. | |
| Now, the judge in this particular case is named Ms. Catherine Kimball-Mazell. | |
| She was appointed by President Trump, and the case before her was brought by a group which was challenging the CDC's mask mandate on several grounds. | |
| Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that the mask mandate violated the Administrative Procedures Act on three separate grounds. | |
| Firstly, that issuing the order was beyond the CDC's statutory authority granted to it by Congress. | |
| Secondly, they argued that the CDC's action was really a rule, otherwise known as a regulation, rather than just an order. | |
| And therefore, as a rule, it had to go through a process of public notice and opportunity for public comment before taking effect, something which they did not do. | |
| And then thirdly, they argued that the mask mandate violated the Administrative Procedures Act because it was arbitrary and capricious, meaning that it was not the result of reasoned and rational decision-making, but rather just the whims of policymakers. | |
| And two days ago, in a 59-page opinion document, well, Judge Catherine Mizell agreed. | |
| Here's part of what she wrote in her court order. | |
| The only reason the mandate cites is the public health emergency caused by COVID-19. | |
| At the time when the CDC issued the mandate, the COVID-19 pandemic had been ongoing for almost a year and COVID-19 cases were decreasing. | |
| This timing undercuts the CDC's suggestion that its action was so urgent that a 30-day comment period was contrary to the public interest. | |
| So, too, the CDC's delay in issuing the mandate further undercuts its position. | |
| This made the mandate arbitrary and capricious because, irrespective of whether the CDC made a good or accurate decision, it needed to explain why it acted as it did. | |
| Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. | |
| The court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate. | |
| And just like that, the mandate was lifted. | |
| In fact, if you head on over to the CDC's website today, you will see a notice on the page containing the mask mandate, which says this, quote,"...as a result of a court order, effective immediately and as of April 18, 2022, the CDC's January 29, 2021 order requiring masks on public transportation, conveniences, and at transportation hubs is no longer in effect." Therefore, the CDC will not enforce the order. | |
| And so, as you see, the CDC still recommends that people continue to wear masks. | |
| However, it no longer has the authority to make people wear masks, although, according to the judge's reasoning, it's questionable whether they ever had that authority in the first place. | |
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| Now, shortly after this decision came down, there was a flurry of activity. | |
| To start with, the major airlines, including American, United, JetBlue, Southwest, Delta, Alaska, Frontier, as well as Spirit Airlines, they all announced that masks will now be optional. | |
| Furthermore, both Amtrak as well as Uber, they announced that they, likewise, will no longer be requiring masks for travel. | |
| However, on the flip side, you have several, usually Democrat-run cities, which have announced that they will not be scrapping the mask mandate. | |
| And so, for instance, the transit systems in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York will continue to force the wearing of masks. | |
| Although, frankly, from my perspective at least, more and more people are ditching the masks here in New York City every single day, regardless of the official policy. | |
| That you had the White House press secretary weigh in on the decision, saying this to reporters. | |
| What about this mask ruling out of a federal court in Florida, that it's a disappointing decision, and you say you continue to recommend that people wear masks? | |
| Why is it that we can sit here in the White House briefing room with no masks, but people can't sit in an airplane cabin with no masks? | |
| Well, Peter, I'm not a doctor. | |
| These determinations, remember the masking guidance is green, yellow, and red. | |
| We are currently in a green zone in Washington, D.C., so they're not recommending it. | |
| And then, shortly afterwards, the Department of Justice came out and they announced that they will be appealing the ruling if the CDC recommends that they appeal. | |
| Here's specifically what a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said in a statement just yesterday. | |
| Quote... | |
| The Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, otherwise known as the CDC, disagree with the district court's decision and will appeal, subject to CDC's conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health. | |
| The department continues to believe that the order requiring masking in the transportation corridor is a valid exercise of the authority Congress has given to the CDC to protect the public health. | |
| That is an important authority the department will continue to work to preserve. | |
| Now the question that I'm sure you're still wondering at this point is how exactly is the Biden administration internally justifying, on the one hand, ending Title 42 and allowing migrants to once again stream into the country, while on the other hand fighting this court order so that the mask mandate can go back into effect? | |
| Because in the face of it, well, these two stances are extremely contradictory. | |
| And so in order to make sense of the whole thing, I called up Dr. | |
| Ben Carson because he has a very unique perspective, given the fact that he is both a world-renowned doctor as well as a former top-level government official. | |
| And so we discussed the mandates, we discussed the biomedical security state that America seems to be turning into, and we also discussed the reality behind the large number of adverse events that came about after the government's mass vaccination program. | |
| Secretary Carson, thank you so much for joining us. | |
| The first thing is I wanted to get your take on this new decision by a federal judge in Florida who just struck down the CDC's mask mandate, the federal mask mandate for travel. | |
| Although it was on a technicality that she did it, I wanted to get your take on it as both a physician as well as a former top-level government official. | |
| What's your opinion of this decision as well as how the mask mandate and all the other mandates have been rolled out over the last year or two? | |
| Well, I'm glad we have some checks and balances in our system. | |
| Because if you have an executive branch that just begins to dictate without any pushback, we go to a very bad place. | |
| And, you know, it's too bad that a federal court system had to come in and bring some common sense into the discussion. | |
| But the fact of the matter is, we all know, you know, from multitudinous data that the masks aren't doing very much, and particularly in things like airplanes that already have HEPA filters. | |
| And, you know, there comes a point when you just have to say enough and let the science actually dictate what you do and not ideologies. | |
| Well, what do you make of the actual decision? | |
| Because the rationale that the judge gave was that the agency did not follow administrative law because they didn't give the public a 30-day period for which they can comment. | |
| But I saw a lot of people saying that even if there was a 30-day comment period, the CDC would still have done whatever they wanted to anyway. | |
| So what do you think the solution for this is moving forward rather than having federal judges, you know, we hope that they would strike down unconstitutional rules? | |
| The solution is to bring some common sense back to our decision making and back to the heads of our agencies. | |
| And, you know, let the data speak for itself. | |
| Look at the evidence and make decisions based on that. | |
| You know, this is not a dictatorship. | |
| This is a republic. | |
| And we have people who represent the constituents. | |
| And we need to understand how this affects the lives of constituents and what they want. | |
| And that the government works for the people. | |
| The people don't work for the government. | |
| That's one of the things that makes America different. | |
| We need to maintain that difference. | |
| Yeah, it seemed like, at least from my perspective, from an outsider's view, it seemed like prior to this whole COVID episode, you had public advisors advising the elected lawmakers, the elected representatives of the people. | |
| But it seems like over the last two years, what has happened is that a lot of these so-called experts, they actually usurped power, and now the mantra is just follow the science, with the science typically being whatever those particular experts say. | |
| So you said the solution is to restore common sense, but a lot of people are saying that, you know, if there's not a real accounting for what has taken place during the COVID time, you know, COVID will naturally become endemic. | |
| But moving forward, the next time there's some kind of an emergency, a similar situation might play out. | |
| So do you foresee or how do you think we could actually change the system so such a thing wouldn't happen again? | |
| Well, I hope if we're going to be making laws of this nature, You know, this is a congressional issue. | |
| And particularly when there's controversy like this, you need to be able to hear what the people who are being governed have to say about it. | |
| And you need to be able to look objectively at the data. | |
| What we've done is we've gotten into a system where we have the media In cahoots with the executive branch, sort of overlooking all the other safeguards that we have in our system. | |
| And as a result of that, what we've done is completely destroyed the trust of the people, the CDC, the NIH, the government health system. | |
| It's going to take a very long time to get that trust back. | |
| Now, the second half of that interview gets into some very spicy territory because we go on to discuss both election integrity as well as the large number of adverse events that came about after the government issued their mass vaccination program. | |
| Topics that, unfortunately, I cannot discuss openly here on YouTube. | |
| So if you'd like to check out that interview in its glorious entirety, you can head on over to Epic TV. | |
| Then when you're there, just click on today's episode of Facts Matter and the interview will be there in full. | |
| Because you see, the regime of censorship here on YouTube has gotten so ridiculous Now, of course, it will never stop me because both myself as well as the Epoch Times as a whole, well, we exist in direct opposition to censorship. | |
| We don't bend the knee and we don't shut our mouths just because some tech oligarchs or even the government wants us to. | |
| We don't play that game. | |
| However, we are also realistic. | |
| And so instead of posting it here on YouTube and giving them a reason to take down our content, maybe even take down our channel or give us a strike, well, we are instead posting it over on Epic TV, our no-censorship video platform that we are building so that real conversations can be had and real news can be reported. | |
| So head on over there, watch the rest of the interview with Dr. | |
| Ben Carson, as well as a plethora of other phenomenal content over on Epic TV. And know that when you subscribe to Epic TV, you are directly helping the journalism that we do here at the Epic Times. | |
| I'll throw the link. | |
| It'll be down there in the description box below. | |
| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from the Epic Times. |
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