Mike Lee Demands Biden Vaccine Mandate Be Scrapped To Avoid Government Shutdown

[Brian4Liberty]

Mike Lee Demands Biden Vaccine Mandate Be Scrapped To Avoid Government Shutdown

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) continues to demand President Biden's vaccine mandate be scrapped.

[Brian4Liberty]

Sen. Mike Lee planning to force a government shutdown to block Biden’s vaccine mandate
Lee is joining with other Senate Republicans to block funding for enforcing the mandate.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee has joined a group of Senate Republicans who are plotting to use the threat of a government shutdown to defund the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing mandate for some private businesses.

The federal government officially runs out of money on Friday at midnight.

Politico reported Democrats are hoping to quickly pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded past that deadline, but Lee and several other Republicans plan to object and draw out the process unless Democrats agree to remove funding for enforcement of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate.
...
“Given that federal courts across the country have raised serious issues with these mandates, it’s not unreasonable for my Democratic colleagues to delay enforcement of the mandates for at least the length of the continuing resolution,” Lee’s statement read.
...
More: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...-lee-planning/

[Brian4Liberty]

Sen. Marshall Leads Effort to Defund the Vaccine Mandate
10 Senators Pledge Objections to Spending Packages Unless Vaccine Mandate is Defunded

(Washington, D.C., November 3, 2021) – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. is leading Republican Senators in pledging to oppose ALL efforts to implement and enforce Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate particularly on upcoming spending measures considered by the U.S. Senate. All 50 Senate Republicans supported Senator Marshall’s amendment to the CR in September to prohibit funding for the promulgation or enforcement of the Biden Administration’s COVID vaccine mandate on private companies.

...

Dear Senator Schumer,

On September 9, 2021, President Biden announced plans to impose a sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandate that, while ostensibly targeting America’s employers, will hurt workers. Using the threat of crippling fines, the president’s mandate would compel all private employers with at least 100 employees to take action against workers who decline to be vaccinated. This is wrong—morally, legally, and constitutionally. Accordingly, we will oppose all efforts to implement and enforce it with every tool at our disposal, including our votes on spending measures considered by the Senate.

To be sure, we agree that countless Americans have benefitted from the protection offered by the COVID-19 vaccines. Nevertheless, the decision whether to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is a highly personal one that should never be forced upon individuals by the federal government. President Biden has chosen to disregard the personal autonomy of free citizens. Some choose not to be vaccinated because of sincere religious beliefs, others because of unique and potentially serious medical conditions. Others have fully recovered from a previous COVID-19 infection and feel adequately protected by natural immunity, which according to some studies is 27 times stronger than immunity derived from a vaccine. But regardless of their reasons, those who choose not to receive the jab deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, especially by their own government. People in any civilized nation should expect nothing less.

President Biden is waging a cruel campaign to punish unvaccinated Americans—depriving them of their ability to provide for their families. This is nothing short of immoral. There are so many humane ways to defeat this virus. Depriving law-abiding citizens of their livelihood must not be included among them.

This punishment is not simply reserved for those who – for their own good reasons – decline to get the jab. President Biden’s mandate will punish everyone by crippling our nation. As companies and state and local governments begin to fall in line behind President Biden’s proclamation, issuing their own mandates to ensure their compliance, the societal consequences of these mandates are starting to manifest as examples of what is to come.

These early examples demonstrate that coerced unemployment will destroy the machinery that allows our nation to function. Vaccine mandates threaten our law and order, national security, supply chains, travel, and every sector of our economy. Here are a few anecdotes signaling serious problems that have already surfaced:

Chicago, which has no shortage of violent crime, may lose nearly one-third of its police force to the city’s vaccine mandate.
In New York City, sixteen percent of Emergency Medical Service workers and thirty percent of firefighters remained unvaccinated as of October 29th, which was the city’s deadline for these first responders to be vaccinated. The immediate result was the closure of twenty-six fire stations.

According to recent analysis by Roll Call, based on Pentagon data, as many as 400,000 troops have not received a single dose of the vaccine.

In addition to the impact on our troops, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told CNBC that, as a result of the mandates, the company would lose several thousand of the defense contractors that support our military.

Trucking companies affected by the mandates could lose thirty-seven percent of their workforce, as estimated by the American Trucking Associations. This in the middle of a supply chain crises where the nation already faces a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers.
Recently, pilots for Southwest Airlines staged a protest of the impending vaccine mandate. In just one weekend, Southwest Airlines had to cancel 1,800 flights, costing the company $75 million.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, seven in ten unvaccinated workers (9% of all adults) would quit their job if required to get the vaccine.

If the vaccine mandate is allowed to be fully implemented, the result could be catastrophic. Many Americans who have decided to not comply with the vaccine mandate will not suddenly accept coercion. That is their God given right. Any attempt to blame this impending catastrophe on those choosing not to take the jab would be severely misplaced.

President Biden chose to employ unnecessarily coercive methods. President Biden made a bet that he could force people to comply with his edicts by threatening their livelihoods. He was so sure of his winning hand that he wagered the machinery that allows our nation to function. When he loses that bet the blame will be fully his. It is wrong to gamble with people’s livelihoods. It is unwise to bet that Americans will cave to petty tyranny.

To be clear, this was not President Biden’s bet to make. The president of the United States does not have any statutory or constitutional authority to undertake this breathtakingly vindictive and unprecedented action. The Constitution, which protects the people from the dangers inherent in the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few, neither authorizes nor tolerates this kind of abuse.

It does, however, vest in Congress—the branch of the federal government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals—the exclusive power to fund all federal endeavors. We intend to use that power here to make sure that this mandate never takes effect.

To that end, please be advised (many weeks in advance of the current spending period, which ends on December 3, 2021) that we will not support—and will use all means at our disposal to oppose—legislation that funds or in any way enables the enforcement of President Biden’s employer vaccine mandate. Nor will we vote for or support cloture on any continuing resolution in the absence of language protecting Americans from this action.

The American people have gone through enough. Please do not become an accessory to such a willful act of barbarism. The people stand with us on this issue because we stand with them, and neither we nor they take kindly to extortion. We invite and implore you to join us in our efforts to protect them.

Sincerely,

Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (KS)

Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN)

Senator Ted Cruz (TX)

Senator Steve Daines (MT)

Senator Jim Inhofe (OK)

Senator Ron Johnson (WI)

Senator Mike Lee (UT)

Senator Cynthia Lummis (WY)

Senator Rick Scott (FL)

Senator Tommy Tuberville (AL)

Senator Rand Paul, M.D. (KY)

Senator Marco Rubio (FL)

Senator James Lankford ( (OK)

Senator James Risch (ID)

Senator Mike Braun (IN)

[pcosmar]

Cool

Resist

[CaptUSA]

Dammit, Mike. Can't we have both?! Scrap the mandate and shut down the government?!

Republicans cave so easily.

[Anti Globalist]

Scrape the vaccine mandate and do a government shutdown. Then never open it back up again.

[Mr.NoSmile]

All talk, no action. It's like a lot of the Republicans, mostly the RINO crowd, are all too eager to hand Biden a win, but not take advantage when they're in the majority. All the more reason they probably won't gain a majority in the House next year.

[69360]

Good idea, I appprove.

[Brian4Liberty]

It appears that they got their vote on mandates. Looks like another completely partisan vote, as if this is a partisan issue. I assume two Republicans were AWOL on this vote.

Lee and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., authored an amendment that prohibited federal dollars being spent to implement and enforce a series of vaccine mandates put in place by the Biden administration. The amendment went down to defeat with 48 yes votes and 50 no votes. But having the vote opened the door to taking up the full spending bill immediately.
...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/na...2te-story.html

[Brian4Liberty]

All 50 Senate Democrats Vote Against Defunding Vaccine Mandates

(Washington, D.C., December 2, 2021) – Tonight, all 50 Senate Democrats voted against an AMENDMENT offered by U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. that would have defunded each of Joe Biden’s COVID vaccine mandates. The votes come on the heels of the Administration ACKNOWLEDGING earlier this year they didn’t have authority to put the mandates in place; multiple federal courts putting a stop to the OSHA MANDATE, as well as the FEDERAL CONTRACTOR and CMS MANDATES; and the White House even DELAYING IMPLEMENTATION of their mandate for federal workers until after the Holidays. In remarks on the Senate floor prior to the vote, Senator Marshall said in part,

“…This is an opportunity to right a wrong for each member in this body. Let’s give employers certainty and employees peace of mind that they will still have a job this new year! Make no mistake: These vaccine mandates are not about public health or science. If they were, the White House would recognize the 92% of Americans who have already built up immunity to this virus between vaccines and natural immunity…
...
https://www.marshall.senate.gov/pres...cine-mandates/

[Brian4Liberty]

Senate Blocks Amendment to Defund Biden Vaccine Mandate

Two Republicans, Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and John Thune (R-SD), were absent for the vote.
...
Two moderate Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), voted against the proposed amendment.

IMHO, the constant Manchin/Sinema narrative is a diversion. They will always vote with the Democrats. It's meant to give false hope to pacify resistance to the Democrat agenda.