On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in cases challenging President Joe Biden’s controversial Covid-19 vaccine mandates for private employers and some health care workers.
Congressional Republicans recently filed an amicus brief opposing an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule that would compel workplaces with more than 100 employees to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine or require weekly testing. The brief argues the mandate “exceeds the scope of OSHA’s congressionally-defined role” and expresses concern over executive overreach.
The OSHA mandate was reinstated on Dec. 17, after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved a stay previously issued by the Fifth Circuit. Three days before enforcement is set to begin, the high court will have an opportunity to deliver yet another legal body blow to the president’s far-left agenda and continued disregard for the Constitution.
Last spring, the Biden administration was repeatedly sued for doling out federal benefits on the basis of race. Plaintiffs in separate cases argued that a provision in Biden’s American Rescue Plan granting priority status for Covid subsidies to minority-owned restaurants was discriminatory and violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Federal judges in Texas and Ohio agreed.
On Aug. 26, the Supreme Court struck down a federal eviction moratorium that had been unilaterally extended by the executive branch without appropriate approval from Congress. The 6-3 ruling was slammed by activists in corporate media, despite the Biden administration admitting weeks earlier that it did not have legal standing to issue a new moratorium.
But it wasn’t just federal courts that served up a dose of reality in 2021. Prosecutors in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse failed to provide any evidence that the defendant was a white supremacist vigilante. Moreover, the state’s own witnesses repeatedly bolstered Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense in the fatal shooting of two men in Kenosha. The trial also exposed the lie that Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and that the 17-year-old’s possession of a firearm was illegal under Wisconsin law.
Meanwhile, the trial of Jussie Smollett — who falsely claimed he was attacked in Chicago by two racist, homophobic Trump supporters — crystalized just how pathetic and partisan the left’s embrace of the hate crime hoax was back in 2019. Among the most bizarre pieces of evidence presented at trial: The actor was caught on surveillance video performing a “dry run” of the fake attack beforehand.
Free speech also notched an important victory in Virginia last year. Leesburg Elementary School teacher Tanner Cross had been placed on administrative leave following his objection to two transgender policy proposals during the public comment period of a school board meeting.
“I’m a teacher but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion,” he explained. Cross sued the Loudoun County School Board, alleging his subsequent suspension amounted to illegal retaliation against his right to free expression.
Judge James E. Plowman granted a temporary injunction reinstating Cross last June, finding Cross was likely to succeed on the merits of his claim at trial. In November, the school board agreed to permanently reinstate Cross. “Just today, the court issued a final order permanently prohibiting the Loudoun County Public School Board from punishing me for freely expressing my views,” he said after the settlement.
At a time virtually every institution in America seems to have lost its mind — and its backbone — the judicial system remains the country’s best hope for restoring national sanity and safeguarding the constitutional rights of every American.
