Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. federal appeals court issued a stay Saturday freezing the Biden administration’s efforts to require workers at U.S. companies with at least 100 employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly, citing “grave statutory and constitutional” issues with the rule.

The ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit comes after numerous Republican-led states filed legal challenges against the new rule, which is set to take effect on Jan 4.

In a statement, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said the Labor Department was “confident in its legal authority” to issue the rule, which will be enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“The Occupational Safety and Health Act explicitly gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them,” she said. “We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court.”

OSHA is just that – a regulatory body intended to regulate occupational safety and health.  They have various powers, and specifically emergency powers to act if, let’s say as an example, the ACGIH (American Conference on Governmental and Industrial Hygienists) finds a plant where hundreds of workers are diagnosed with cancer after exposure to Benzene at a much lower MPC (maximum permissible concentration) than allowed, leading to the conclusion that maybe the MPC is too high.

OSHA does not have the power to regulate medicine.

But Aesop seems more confident that I am.

That all amounts to the polite legalese version of “Ain’t no way in hell you can get this lead pig to fly, but watching you try to sell it in open court is going to crack us up hereabouts for years, so go ahead on.”

FedGov’s got until Monday to smoke enough dope to come up with some half-assed excuse for the mandate, followed by the plaintiffs who sued for the injunction to have another chance to beat this jackassical idea to death in court, and then strangle it with its own umbilical cord.

Normally, a case like this would start at the bottom in district court. That it went straight to the Circuit Appeals court, which then climbed up on the ring ropes, and jumped on it with both feet like a WWF match, speaks volumes about how solidly the Circuit is opposed to the entire idea in its view of the government’s actions and chances of prevailing in the case.

The White House is going to have to strategically stockpile Depends by the metric fuckton, once Gropey Dopey finds out about this, and starts sh*tting his pants all over again.

Concerning sentiments, as you see from what I’ve written above, I’m in his camp.  However, I have much less confidence in the final demise of this rule.  I have much less confidence because I have no confidence in any branch of the U.S. government to do the right thing any time on any issue.  One bright spot is that Don Willett is on the Fifth Circuit, who I had advocated for appointment to the Supreme Court (and who would have been much better than any justice Trump appointed).  But he is one in twenty.

To show you just how unconfident I am in the FedGov, let me tell you my initial reaction upon reading this.

With the Biden administration facing a growing wave of lawsuits to stop the president’s vaccine mandate on companies, an Indiana businessman-turned-senator believes he has the quickest way to kill it.

Sen. Mike Braun, backed by most GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is hopeful of nixing the mandate through the arcane but effective Congressional Review Act. It would force a vote in both Houses just before Christmas and when 93,000 firms could be firing unvaccinated workers.

The act allows Congress to review federal rules, normally ignored by the House and Senate. In this case, he would target the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new proposal that firms with 100-plus workers have all employees vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face a hefty fine.

It was used effectively in the first year of the Trump administration to kick start the former president’s effort to wipe away costly rules that put mountains of red tape and costs on the public.

They’re not concerned about killing this ill-conceived mandate.  This is to garnish votes in the next election.

Because.  Politics.