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On Covid and Texas, Biden Courts a Constitutional Crisis
When Donald Trump was president, we heard a lot about Norms® and Standards.™ Trump was accused of violating this vague collection of unwritten rules, a convenient tactic when they couldn’t prove actual crimes. The good news was that Biden’s election would restore this Beltway-approved system of etiquette. How refreshing.
Eight months into his administration, Biden has folded, spindled, and mutilated our Norms® and Standards,™ even those mandated by the Constitution. Trump was erratic but Biden is openly courting a constitutional crisis.
Pressured by far-left backbencher Cori Bush in August, the White House reinstated an eviction ban already declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Biden knew it was a violation but said: “by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time.”
As expected, SCOTUS immediately crushed it stating, “if a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.” Just as it says in the Constitution.
On Thursday, Biden made two more obviously unconstitutional moves. First, he ordered hapless Attorney General Merrick Garland to sue the state of Texas over its new abortion law. The administration was furious that the Supreme Court actually followed the law and refused to issue an emergency stay. The DOJ bizarrely claimed that a state exercising its rights will “nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
Later in the day, the President announced a six-point plan to tackle Covid. Called “Path out of the Pandemic,” his executive orders require millions of Americans to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. The groups include federal employees, employees of contractors that do business with the federal government, and workers in hospitals, home health care facilities, and other medical facilities.
Biden also ordered all private employers with 100 employees or more to require weekly Covid testing, and they are required to give employees paid time off to get vaccinated.
“This is not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in a national address. “We’ve been patient but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us.” After attacking Americans, the President took on the states. “If these governors won’t help,” Biden said, “I will use my powers as president and get them out of the way.”
Back in December, Biden promised that he would not make vaccines mandatory. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki repeated this in July. But Biden’s promises are irrelevant, as Americans and allies still stranded in Afghanistan have learned. Wanting voters to forget the crisis overseas, he is creating new ones on the homefront.
The White House has no authority to do any of this, of course. The White House knows they have no authority to do any of this. Biden is doing it anyway.
Norms®? Standards™? Not for Biden. He has chosen constitutional crisis.
Published in Politics
The record on that so far is not great, but here’s hoping.
I don’t think you missed very much.
I’m going to throw my two cents in on this:
As a reminder, in the January 6th post, Jon asserted “
Those are pretty big words coming from the head of a major conservative website. It is not just an inconsequential post by some Joe Shlabotnik eight months ago. For whatever reason Jon has chosen not to comment on the above quotes. I don’t know that he has even outlined his justification for removing and barring Trump. He didn’t give any reason in the post unless you count his opening statement:
But the same could be said for nearly every single Democrat President, Senator, or Congressperson, and even a few Republicans. I am not planing on hectoring Jon about this in future posts, but I do think he owes the constituency at Ricochet and honest account of his views, for he is not just the editor at Ricochet, he is a political pundit who appears on national television.
I’m not looking for any apologies, but it would be nice just to know where he stands. I do not respect leaders who are unwilling to stand up for their views. Believe it or not, I might be casting a vote for Dennis Kucinich (Oh, lordy!) in the Cleveland Mayoral Election because he is the only progressive democrat in the field (which consists only of progressive democrats) who is willing to openly voice and stand up for his views.
I’m completely sympathetic to this. I’m serious, you have my condolences. I grew up in your area and can imagine doing the same with my mayoral vote.
And I agree Jon’s post was damaging to the community and to his reputation with many of us. I started to compose a comment about setting off incendiary devices and pinning them at the top of the Main Feed in response to Stina (see what I did there?), and I find the “it’s been 8-9 months!” excuse a little like, “that was four or five days ago!!,” but I do think it’s best for all involved if we can forgive and forget. The best we can hope for is clarity about each other’s and our own positions. Clarity over agreement.
Better now.
Eh, I’m trying to forget it in my interactions with Jon. Otherwise it might be considered holding onto a grudge. Never found that appealing.
See last line of this comment for funny.
In my experience, you need neither forgive nor forget in order to be at peace with an offense.
You just don’t let it bother you. The referee is not furious, but he does keep score (weak analogy I know — working on it).
No defense is perfect, and no stance of poise and calm can outlast the need for a good dump. This is not the eternal, starched-soul calm of the [some kind of people] who achieve the [some kind of state]. No, this is good-enough calm, selected and pursued with intent.
As the [insert ethno-religious reference] say, “If you want to be happy — Be Happy.”
So I don’t agree with Jon’s thing, and I wish he hadn’t written or posted it — I wish he hadn’t thought it — I should like to think better of him than I do as a result — which I think is fair, not abusive. And as the editor of the site, his stuff is certainly up for debate (or he wouldn’t have put it up / kept it up), so debate is not off the table.
What is unlikely to produce any positive results, however, is trying to harangue somebody into agreeing with you, especially after months of the same have failed to produce the desired result. The same is true for the “logitarians” (more on them later) who believe that logic through the front door can trump (wink!) emotions and habits already installed throughout the house. It’s like knocking on somebody’s door and asking them if they have a few minutes to talk about your views on the local direction of gravity. Daily. For weeks. You’ll get a restraining order, not a convert.
Um. Now abandoning this comment, as I had thought I was back at home on my “Tough Love” post. Sorry for wandering off the reservation uh [looks up to see who wrote this post]. Ohhh…..
I’m not looking for Jon Gabriel to agree with anything or anybody. I just want him to acknowledge his viewpoint. He seems to be afraid to either say his view has changed or to reiterate that he still thinks the January rioters were “terrorists” and “insurrectionists” and that Trump should have been removed from office and barred for life. We can agree to disagree, but when people refuse to engage honestly on issues, such as most democrats do, it makes for hostility and suspicion.
This is a case where I just apply my Dennis Miller policy to Mr. Gabriel:
If he wants to move on and pretend we all didn’t see what he was doing with the platypus on January 6, fine by me. But I do believe the post is worth a bookmark if for nothing else the reaction of the commenters…the true colors of many were on full display that day. That is worth not forgetting in future discourse here.
I am just at a loss to describe these statements. This is an utter rejection of the limits placed on the Federal government by the Constitution, as well as an attempt to dispossess of of *any* rights by simply hand-waving them away.
And “These governors” sounds as if he is addressing balky employees, threatening to fire them. It is important to recall that the Federal government (which is not supposed to be a “national” government) is the creation of the States and not the other way around.
People like Biden(‘s controllers) like to point to hundreds of years of law and precedent since then, but again, it is important to recall that no law is allowed to cotradict the Constitution. Every jot and tittle in the Constitution trumps any law — local, state or federal — which fails that test.
It’s just hard to get people to apply the test, particularly if they were elected on a platform of ignoring the Constitution and simply doing a mob’s bidding.
I don’t believe this vaccine mandate is going to be complied with, but what if it were? Probably 10% of working Americans are still going to refuse to get the shot. Even if only 5% refuse, what is Biden going to say if 8 million working Americans are fired due to his order? I suppose it will be the same thing Hillary Clinton said when asked about all the unemployed that would come from her plan to completely kill coal mining. We’ll have government programs for them, meaning welfare of some kind.
And why the 100-employee cutoff? With some government mandates, I get why the regulation only applies for larger business, because the cost of compliance is too great for small businesses. But the cost of firing and replacing an employee is probably the same whether you have 8 employees or 100,000.
The cost per employee might be equivalent, but when you have a lot more total employees, the burden is diluted.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t accusing Jon specifically of that, I was simply pointing out that this was part of an egregious pattern on the part of ‘professional’ conservatives of falling for and promoting the progressive narrative, especially as it pertains to Reichstag Fire scenarios. To be fair, some that have previously espoused such libels have apparently become at least moderately red-pilled in the wake of 2020, though others have not.