Less than a week after President Joe Biden announced his tyrannical vaccine mandate, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs said his county would not comply with the lawless order.
“In Knox County, we know what we stand for. We stand for freedom. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the Constitution,” Jacobs, who is also professional wrestler “Kane” of WWE fame, said in a letter addressed to the president. “And you can rest assured that we will stand against your blatant and egregious executive overreach.”
The order mandates that all businesses with 100 or more employees require COVID-19 vaccines or weekly testing for all workers. The Tennessee mayor, who also defended his county from statewide stay-at-home orders, said citizens would suffer drastically from vaccine mandates.
“As the chief executive of an organization that employees 2,700 individuals, your action adds financial, legal, and regulatory burdens that will ultimately impact Knox County taxpayers,” he said. “In addition, it potentially hinders our ability to attract quality employees since many folks in our community will not work somewhere that unjustly imposes vaccine mandates.”
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III wrote a similar letter to Biden on Thursday, saying the mandate likely violated federal law. He is one of 24 Republican state attorneys general demanding that Biden remove the “unlawful and harmful” mandate.
“This vaccine-or-test mandate appears to be an unprecedented expansion of federal power and fails to consider the steps individuals, employers, and our state have already made,” Slatery said.
Slatery mentioned specific concerns about the mandate, including that the order fails to recognize religious liberty, free speech, and bodily autonomy.
“As a fellow elected official who has sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution just as you have, I am alarmed by the alacrity with which you issued this order, contradicting both Article 1, Section I — which vests legislative power in the Congress — and the Tenth Amendment — which recognizes the sovereignty of the states or the people over matters the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government,” Jacobs wrote.
Referencing a retweet by Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, that said, “OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations,” Jacobs said the Biden administration was intentionally abusing its power and gloating “like the cat who ate the canary.”
“Mr. President, if we, as elected officials, ignore, disregard, and contravene the laws which bind us, how can we expect our fellow citizens to respect and follow the laws which bind all of us as a society?” he asked.
We are not the country we claim to be, Jacobs continued. America needs to figure out what this nation stands for — or risk losing freedom.
“As an American, I am appalled by your statement: ‘This is not about freedom or personal choice,’” Jacobs admonished Biden, quoting Biden’s speech last week. “On the contrary, in America, it is always about freedom.”
