January 25, 2022
The federal government is giving up – for now – on the OSHA testing or vaccination mandate for employees at companies with more than 100 employees.
I told you in this video the Supreme Court ruled the specific way OSHA was trying to implement the mandate through the Emergency Temporary Standard was not legal and that enforcement must be blocked while the case played out in the lower court. Well the federal government filed this document today conceding they’d probably eventually lose the case, as of tomorrow, the OSHA testing or vaccination ETS will be withdrawn from the Federal Register. It’s going away. The government then goes on to ask the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to just drop the case.
Now — there is one little footnote in the document that says – the government will continue to work on a permanent rule based on the vaccine or test ETS. But there’s no timeframe on when that’ll happen or what it’ll look like.
So what does it mean for you? Your employer can’t use the OSHA vaccine or testing mandate as justification for you to be vaccinated or tested. However – your employer absolutely, legally *can* mandate a vaccine or testing policy as a term of your employment regardless of what OSHA says. The only way they wouldn’t be allowed to do that is if there is some rule, law or order in your state that explicitly bans such mandates.
Read the Federal government filing here.
Are we going to war over this whole Russia/Ukraine thing?
I’m going to get to that, but let me explain what’s going on.
Here are the facts… the United States sent a fresh shipment of weapons to Ukraine today and the Pentagon announced yesterday up to 8500 US troops are now on “high alert” for possible deployment to Eastern Europe. That’s in addition to the NATO allies who are readying their troops and equipment in support of Ukraine.
This comes as Russia continues to mass more than 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border even after weeks of negotiation with the Russians and even direct communication between President Biden and Vladimir Putin, so far, no standing down. Russia denies it’s planning to invade Ukraine – but it certainly appears an invasion could come soon.
So why should we care?
First – let me explain where this is going down.
This is Russia. And you can see Ukraine is here. This is where those Russian troops are currently sitting. Invading this part of the world isn’t new for Putin — back in 2014 they “annexed” Crimea which is right here. Whether you call it an annex or invasion – tomato tomato.
Now – why should Americans care about Ukraine and what Russia does there?
There are a lot of moving chess pieces here.
Vladimir Putin believes Ukraine belongs to Russia. By all accounts if Russia invades Ukraine that would start a snowball effect that could ultimately destabilize Europe which will significantly impact and maybe endanger our NATO allies. The United States has a NATO obligation under article 5 of the NATO treaty to defend its allies. And if you’re wondering how the US congress feels about Ukraine??? For years Congress has approved bipartisan bills supporting robust military and other assistance to Ukraine.
Now — Vladimir Putin has been on a mission to dominate that part of the world and has made no secret that he’s willing to assert his authority either by force, military, cyber or through Russian oil and gas exports. What he doesn’t want is for Ukraine and other neighboring countries to have the ability to join NATO thereby diminishing his power and influence. Nor does he want NATO expanding its footprint in that part of the world. He also wants NATO to abandon any military activity in Eastern Europe. The United States and NATO member countries don’t really believe that Vladimir Putin gets to make that decision.
So are we going to war? Not yet and maybe not at all. It’s important to understand – the US government and other NATO allies like France and the UK continue to say diplomatic options are still on the table, if Russia is willing to play ball. Plus – Putin likes this kind of attention from the world.
