How many ways will unhinged lunatics find to kill us?
A federal appeals court has reversed a ruling, effectively halting United Airlines’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees. The majority on the 5th U.S. Circuit panel ruled in favor of lifting the mandate. The majority explained its ruling was on very narrow ground, but in a seething dissent, one judge said he would rather “hide my head in a bag” than join the unpublished ruling he indicated would not be upheld on the merits.
The case was brought by a group of United employees challenging the airline’s policy that all employees receive the vaccination or remain on unpaid leave. Two workers received religious exemptions from getting the vaccine. The majority on the New Orleans based court held these exempt workers would suffer irreparable harm if the mandate remained in place, because “they are actively being coerced to violate their religious convictions.”
In an unsigned 22-page ruling from U.S. Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod and Andrew S. Oldham, the court reversed the ruling and remanded the case to the trial judge in the Northern District of Texas for re-consideration of the legality of the company’s vaccine mandate. The majority said the trial court must properly analyze the irreparable harm of making an employee choose between “the job or jab.”
The third judge on the panel, Jerry E. Smith, penned a 57-page signed dissent vehemently calling into question the wisdom of his colleagues’ conclusion, however narrow, that the lower court’s reasoning about the mandate was faulty.
Smith said his colleagues’ findings were “head scratching.” And then Smith offered a searing indictment, highlighted in a thread by attorney and prolific appellate law tweeter Raffi Melkonian.
The dissenting judge wrote, “If I ever wrote an opinion authorizing preliminary injunctive relief for plaintiffs without a cause of action, without a likelihood of success on the merits (for two reasons), and devoid of irreparable injury, despite the text, policy, and history of the relevant statute, despite the balance of equities and the public interest, and despite decades of contrary precedent from this circuit and the Supreme Court, all while inventing and distorting facts to suit my incoherent reasoning,” then “I would hide my head in a bag.” He went on to say, “Perhaps the majority agrees. Why else shrink behind an unsigned and unpublished opinion?”
You really should read that Twitter thread, and also Mark Joseph Stern’s analysis. I know some of y’all are tired of me calling the Fitch Circuit a lawless abomination, but here’s one of its senior jurists, and old school Reagan-appointed capital-C conservative calling it the same thing. Do you believe me now?
Of course, these nutballs need fuel for their fire, and there’s no shortage of that.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, are suing the Biden administration to end mask mandates on planes.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, argues that the mandate imposes a “restriction on travelers’ liberty interests” and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have the authority to introduce such a blanket preventive measure.
First issued in January 2021, the federal mask mandate requires travelers to wear masks while using public transportation services or facilities, including airports and subway stations. Those who violate the mask mandate could be subject to fines.
Travelers younger than 2 years old or with disabilities who cannot wear a mask are exempt from the requirement. The CDC also amended the order in June 2021 and said the mandate would not apply to outdoor settings.
The federal mandate is set to expire on March 18.
Airline companies — including Texas-based American Airlines and Southwest Airlines — have cited federal law as a reason for requiring face coverings and barring violators from travel.
The suit is the latest in a slew of state efforts to challenge COVID-19 safety measures in court. The state is locked in several legal battles with cities, counties and school districts over masks in public schools. Texas also has sued the Biden administration over federal vaccine mandates for health care workers, federal contractors and large businesses.
I’ll tell you what, when airlines impose a vaccination requirement for flying, which frankly the feds should have done months ago, then I’ll agree that the masks can go. Flying on a commercial aircraft is a privilege, not a right. That privilege can and should be revoked for reckless and dangerous behavior, despite what some Republican Senators would have you believe. Do you think Ted Cruz would actually want to be on the same plane as this guy? So-called “conservatives” have been yelling at us for years about the decline in civil society. Well, they were eventually right about the decline, but completely wrong about the cause. I think we all know the real reasons for it.
“ Flying on a commercial aircraft is a privilege, not a right. That privilege can and should be revoked for reckless and dangerous behavior, ”
Amen. Ted Cruz’s caterwauling about how this means we’re labeling these vicious spoiled brats as terrorists now, is disingenuous even by his low standards. No, we’re calling them disrespectful jerks and possible hazards to everyone else on the plane. Bad actions deserve negative consequences. A pity there haven’t been consequences yet for Cruz and his ilk.