A mixed bag.
Congress is poised to use the annual defense policy bill to eliminate the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate — a major concession by President Biden’s Democratic allies that helps clear the way to passing the sweeping package before year’s end.
In a compromise with Republicans, House Democrats are allowing language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that repeals the coronavirus vaccine mandate for U.S. service members a year after it was enacted, House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) confirmed to The Hill Tuesday.
The cultural change is not universal, but it is widespread. That’s why I think efforts in L.A. to bring back mask mandates won’t work. People have moved on. Or at least most people have. Some dead-enders will fight for it, but Dems are about ready to move on.
The concession by Democrats on a mandate they once championed zealously highlights how attitudes surrounding the vaccines have shifted since the coronavirus struck almost three years ago.
I’m skeptical of bipartisan deals and compromises.
House Dems decided that the vaccine mandate is a losing battle and expendable to horse trade for the things they really want. Arguably it’s also achieved its intended result of pushing out conservatives.
Bringing them back is not in the deal.
One thing not expected in the bill, however, is language to reinstate troops, sailors and airmen who were discharged or received penalties for declining the vaccine, a provision GOP lawmakers hoped to insert in the legislation.
Instead, lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services committees are planning report language for the bill that allows the Pentagon to evaluate service members affected by the mandate, Rogers said.
On the one hand, there’s a severe recruiting crisis, on the other, Biden’s brass don’t give a damn about military readiness and welcome the purge. Reversing the purge would undo the whole agenda. I suspect the door will be fairly open for some of the younger guys they need, whom they think they can still brainwash, but overall they’re happy with where things are. They don’t need a functional military, they need a politically conformist one. The vaccine mandate was just one of a number of political tests.
There will be more.
Thanks Daniel, good analysis.
This is a terrible injustice to the troops involved and a danger to the rest of the country, with military preparedness at a low level and competence even lower. I believe that the government is achieving what it intended to.
Why in the holy heck would any person want to go back into the same military that tried to murder them with the deadly mRNA shots, and then kicked them out when they refused to let the military murder them?
Patriotism.
Why would they return? To be stupid?
Trump thinks they’re stupid but Trump think’s he’s smart.
That jab mandate in the military was just as disasterous as the one imposed on the healthcare members here in Canada. Many of the doctors and nurses were given the choice of jab or termination. Many took option number two. Now the doctors and nurses left on the frontlines in Canada are whining that they are overwhelmed with staff shortages, many hospitals have had to close the Emergency Departments at times and surgeries are cancelled because of a lack of staff. Wait times In the ER can be 24 hours before you see a doctor. Of course the media skates around the real issues as to why that is happening. Lo and behold, it was just admittted on national TV that ” unvaccinated ” healthcare workers may be offered their jobs back. I worked in healthcare for decades but was lucky to retire many years before all this rubbish took place. The way they hung healthcare workers out to dry, I wouldnt go back to that toxic environment for all the money in the world. Let all those sanctimonious bootlickers who ostracized and vilified the unjabbed, reap what they have sown.