President Biden is at his best when he is in Annoyed Grandpa Mode. That’s what happened yesterday, when Pres. Biden gave yet another state-of-the-pandemic speech. The purpose of the speech was to announce a series of vaccine mandates across the country, and the reason for this is because Grandpa Joe is sick and tired of all of this malarkey and all of these anti-vaxx shenanigans. America has needed broader vaccine mandates for months now. I understand why the Biden administration has been hesitant to go harder though – the goal was vaccination by persuasion. Now all of the persuadable people have been vaccinated and there is still a significant (small and loud, but significant) percentage of the population who just want to die unvaccinated in a hospital bed to own the libs. So President Biden is making it harder for them to do that.
President Biden announced sweeping new coronavirus vaccine mandates Thursday designed to affect tens of millions of Americans, ordering all businesses with more than 100 employees to require their workers to be immunized or face weekly testing. Biden also said that he would require most health-care facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding to vaccinate their employees, which the White House believes will cover 50,000 locations.
And the president signed an executive order compelling all federal employees to get vaccinated — without an option for those who prefer to be regularly tested instead — in an effort to create a model he hopes state governments will embrace. He is also ordering all staffers in Head Start programs, along with Defense Department and federally operated schools for Native Americans, to be vaccinated.
“We’re in a tough stretch, and it could last for a while,” Biden said in an address from the White House. He added, “What makes it incredibly more frustrating is we have the tools to combat covid-19, and a distinct minority of Americans, supported by a distinct minority of elected officials, are keeping us from turning the corner.”
Biden adopted a newly antagonistic tone toward the unvaccinated Thursday, underlining his shift from cajoling to coercion as he placed blame on those still refusing to get shots for harming other Americans. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said. “And your refusal has cost all of us.”
A “newly antagonistic tone” = inject THAT into my veins. Antagonistic grandpa is mad as hell with your anti-vaxx shenanigans. Anyway, to all of the people whining about how Biden promised to never do vaccine mandates… y’all are the reason why the Biden administration had to change strategy. Too many people adopted this attitude of “I’m not going to get the vaccine until I’m ordered to/it becomes mandated” and look where we are.
Oh, and people were BIG MAD that Biden mentioned that Fox News mandated vaccinations months ago. Apparently, Fox News viewers were shook that their favorite anti-vaxx Fox News personalities were secretly vaccinated months ago and everything they’ve heard on that channel is one big lie.
Biden: Some of the biggest companies are already requiring this… even Fox News pic.twitter.com/rHQ74iRhCm
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 9, 2021
perhaps Joe Biden should use national addresses to reveal more things to Fox News viewers that Fox News will not tell them https://t.co/y6cXttOkGi
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 9, 2021
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
This has been a good week for the US – this mandate and the DOJ announcing they will sue Texas over their new abortion law. Small wins are better than no wins.
To quote some genius on Twitter, “Dad just turned the car around.”
I love it!
I saw that yesterday and shrieked!
This sums it up perfectly.
Hands down the BEST comment I read about it. I let out SUCH a whoop!
HOLY CRAP, that’s hilarious!
LOVE IT!!!
YES. Good. I’m a fed and I got vaccinated months ago, and I’ll say that in general my agency (I assume under the direction of OPM) has made it as easy as possible to get vaccinated – admin leave for the appointments, emergency sick leave for any side effects (that comes out of a separate “pot” so you don’t have to use your own sick leave), etc.
My agency is VERY public-facing and we need to open our offices back up to serve the public, people can do a lot online but a lot of the populations we serve don’t have the resources to do that, so we really need to get our offices open, hopefully with this requirement we’ll be able to do that if all the employees are vaccinated.
This also probably means I won’t be able to telework full time for the rest of my life as I was envisioning, but I’m okay with that lol.
I work for a hospital and they will send you home with pay if you have any side effects.
In Kentucky, our governor (Democrat – wonderful) issued an order that provided 10 days of additional Covid sick leave days if we became ill. The legislature (Republican super majority – unbelievably terrible) subsequently passed a law stripping him of his emergency executive authority and rescinded the additional leave in special session. They also eliminated the statewide mask mandate.
If the Republicans take back the house they will impeach Biden for this. They are steadfast in the right to “stupid” yourself to death.
but how come he’s not mandating it for migrants coming in south of the border?
As far as I know anyone with a visa coming into the country to work or go to school needs a vaccination.
I am absolutely here for this!
In the military and some other national institutions, it’s a matter of National security, you can’t have large swaths of your workforce out of commission because a preventable infectious disease is allowed to spread. Plus there’s the financial burden of support for folks who survive but wind up disabled, or with long hauler syndrome.
I hope he makes it a federal crime to interfere with vaccination sites, so people like the idiots in Colorado causing vaccine clinics to shut down because of mob /thug behavior would be facing jail time.
Anti-vaxxers lives are so empty and depleted. Imagine devoting time to attacking a vaccination site. It’s so pathetic.
Especially attacking it to supposedly demonstrate your passionate support for personal freedoms, individual rights.
It like the anti-maskers who attack people wearing masks and even rip their masks off. Or the evangelical right that scream about religious freedoms but advocate laws that essentially turn their religion into the official state religion and penalize people who aren’t them.
Obviously their true religion is “freedom for me but not for thee”
Good on Grandpa Joe. Like him, I’m also fed up with this tomfoolery-malarky-buffoonery of these anti-vaxxers. I hope the rules and regulations make none of them want to their leave their homes. They can enjoy “muh freedoms!” from their couches.
Good. Vaccines should definitely be mandated for health care workers and those who don’t want to should be fired. If you don’t “trust” a vaccine then why the hell should people trust you to deliver their healthcare? Of course if you’re unable because of allergies or your doctor said no, that’s understandable.
I know someone who works IN A HOSPITAL who refuses to get the vaccine, and with the deadline coming up to get vaccinated or fired, he’s now looking for an attorney to represent him. Problem is (for him), most attorneys aren’t taking those cases because they are for the vaccine mandates and know how ridiculous this lawsuit would be.
I am so happy that Joe flexed his muscles on this. Maybe those who bitch and moan about getting the shots will someday realize that the President saved their lives.
Excellent. I work for the Forest Service in California & you know who’s getting COVID? Engine crews–firefighters who live together, work together, travel together. These people have got to get vaccinated & this seems to be the only way to make it happen. Fire season is bad enough as it is.
You’d think that people who work in environments that can be filled with smoke and noxious fumes and require oxygen tanks to breathe would be all for anything that keeps them from suffering an illness that makes breathing painful, difficult and nearly impossible as you basically drown for days in your own bodily fluids despite the best medical treatments available.
But apparently not ☹️
This is great news, so of course my dumb pessimist brain had to think, “So how many companies of 100+ people are going to suddenly downsize to only 99 employees?
If they don’t want to force employees to vaccinate and mask, they will downsize to 99 employees by COVID automatically.
Sadly, this called to mind a PBS promo for the British murder mystery show Midsomer Murders, which ends with a counter that shows “Midsomer Population 1600”
And the population number starts ticking 1599, 1598, and then flipping down faster and as they rapid edit cuts of hands wielding murder weapons, bodies on the ground, falls and other “accidents” etc.
That’s what some of these short sighted folks are heading towards.
In my one of the school districts some of my grandchildren attend had a board meeting to revisit the mask mandate they have in place. The president of the board wanted to put in for high school students optional mask wearing – vaccinated or not. Luckily that got voted down. They voted to keep the mandate in place, 5-2. One of the board members stated to one of the board members that voted against the mask mandate: It’s all good until it happens to your family. And that’s pretty much the truth. So glad that Biden is stepping up on the issue. It will make it easier for businesses to have vaccine and mask mandates.
I live in Texas where our jackass Governor has outlawed mask mandates for schools or businesses. I’m so proud of the school districts that are defying him and requiring masks for anyone on a school campus. Of course he is suing those districts. I’m hoping this leads to his political self-destruction.
I am so proud of all the school districts in many state that are defying the no mask mandate law. Thank goodness there are rational people out there that will do what is necessary to keep people safe.
Giddy, have friends in the beautiful blue parts of Texas, and they are horrified with recent events. Some of whom are very politically active and doing all they can. So frustrating. I admire your strength, and am so sorry this is happening where you live. All my love to you and also to you Swack. May times get better for us all soon. And yep, time to gear up for mid-terms everybody! Bigtime. LOVE.
Me too, except I live in a suburban area just north of a huge blue city where most of the school districts have mandated masks. Unfortunately, my district got really cute and is following TEA guidelines, which were approved by Assface Abbott so they make masks “optional,” instead of CDC guidelines which make them mandatory. So guess who’s 8 year-old caught COVID (despite her wearing a mask) and is home for two weeks? Thankfully it seems very minor, but she also picked up strep at the same time, so I am anxious. It’s tearing through her class, she woke up not feeling well on Tuesday and I took her into the doctor after we got a notice of a positive case in her class. When we got her results and I reported on Thursday, we got a notice of two positives in her class (hers being one) and another report today. That’s on top of two more that were already out, so in a class of 22 they’ve had 6 positives in less than 2 weeks. They’re all going to get it before it’s all said and done.
Same here for the Hill Country. It’s bad enough that the place is filling up with people moving in and driving all of the housing prices into an insane bubble. But these idiots who come here and try to intimidate the city council bc they can’t handle wearing a mask or teaching their children the importance of basic safety protocols are infuriating. Giddy, I feel for ya, girl.
I’m getting daily emails of the COVID cases at the school and it’s been up to 9 per day in a school with barely 2000 kids. These kids are even old enough to get the shots! But my family is fully vaccinated, so at least we have that, right?
These people ripping masks off and coughing on other people are so far from normal manners…my own kids think it’s incredibly rude in any circumstance, much less a health emergency. I can’t believe we are doing this as a first world country. Are they going to start throwing acid or setting people on fire for trying to go to school next? Is this some kind of f***ed up new version of some kind of evangelical sharia law now?
Our governor thinks he can save us from the rapists by outlawing access to medical services with bounty hunters, his lieutenant gov wants to sacrifice all of the grandparents to COVID but oh help us from the trans kids trying to use the bathroom in peace, and the AG is still fighting lawsuits and investigations over self-enrichment. AND Ted Cruz. Nuff said.
In the town my niece and nephew attend public school in, they have a mask mandate for kids, teachers and other school staff.
By the second day of school, a handful of teachers in the elementary school took it upon themselves to override that policy, and took off their masks to teach entire lessons, purportedly because they wanted the kids to see their faces. Like, way to be COVIDiots! (Have they not SEEN the news about spread in schools from Marin County and Miami and TX?)
And to wrest decision making away from parents who made schooling/health risk decisions based on the school’s actual policy!
My sister and BIL took their daughter out of school, which really upset her, other families are doing the same with similar upsets to their kids (but if it’s a choice between your kid being upset or them possibly being infected by a potentially deadly disease by an ignorant selfish stubborn rule breaking teacher…the choice is clear). All trauma and chaos that didn’t need to happen if the school enforced their actual policies OR the teachers announced their plans in advance so parents could have made different choices BEFORE classes started and kids got their hopes up to be with their friends.
In my city a teacher was fired for taking her mask off. The kids narc’d on her.
In a district right next to Austin a parent assaulted a mask wearing teacher the first day of school, ripping her mask off. That poor kid will never live down the crazy mother legacy.
My state has a mask mandate for schools but it doesnt go into effect until next week (bc the legislature needs to vote on it) so my county isn’t enforcing it yet. Nine kids were sent home from my son’s class yesterday due to covid exposure/being a close contact/etc. NINE. It was the second day of school. My boys are masking up and I think a lot of other kids are, but its still not enough.
The anti-vaxxers failed to realize how fed up most of us are with their deadly, selfish behavior. Their pundits were all over the place trying to attack Biden last night and they were shocked by the pushback and how many support what Biden is doing.
I’m really glad Biden did this! 🙂 It just makes it so much more transparent as to why you need to get the vaccine and takes care of some of the antivaxx oposition. Hopefully, in a few months it will also have helped to lessen the burden on the hospitals and other workers on the forefront of the pandemic! I hope, as an American living abroad, that more countries will follow suit. And next, I really want Biden to go up against the source of a lot of antivaxx misery: the social media companies that allow (some of) your friends and family to get brainwashed and potentially brainwash you with dangerous misinformation.
My hairdresser rage posted on FB last night comparing the mandate to what “happened to the jews” and i nearly lost my mind. I am DONE with the mindset of these people. you know, they all claim to have loved our last moron President because he did things his way and now Biden is stepping up and they’re freaking out about control. i cannot begin to describe how exhausted i am by this and how disheartened i am about people in this country.
Time to fire your hairdresser.
Time to ghost your hairdresser and find a new one!
As a Jew, that crap INFURIATES me.
Time to find a new person to do your hair. And let him/her know why. I wouldn’t want to go into their salon for fear of getting infected.
They are such baby idiots. Really? it’s like the Holocaust? Is it really now?
Man, I hope this sticks. I hope these idiots get squeezed from every angle. Raise their insurance premiums, get fined, enact new laws where they can get sued for endangering others, etc.
Me too. And they are so smug. That will take that smugness right out of them.
Fed up Biden is my favorite Biden
I love that. They pushed to the no mularkey point of no return!
Here in South Carolina, our Governor Henry “Disaster” McMaster gave a rousing response speech where he proclaimed that he will fight Joe Biden and the democrats “to the very gates of Hell”.
He actually said that. And his crowd is lapping it up like diseased dogs.
Well, they’ll be heading to the gates of Hell sooner than they think. COVID is coming to get ya!
I’m traveling so I missed this and Foghorn Leghorn’s reaction yesterday.
I am so glad this is happening!! I live in a southern state where school boards are refusing to take any measures against Covid. As in zero. In all schools. Our governor (R) is like do what you want and it’s the school boards that have doubled down again to NOT to mandate masks, practice social distancing or do contact tracing. It’s literally unbelievable. Everyone acts like we didn’t go through this last school year. I sincerely hope these ridiculous anti-mask/vaxx idiots will finally shut up. And lose their jobs if I’m being brutally honest.
This thrills me, and I think it’s really awesome that Biden is taking the hit for a lot of employers who probably wanted to do this but didn’t want their employees to get angry with them. Now they can say, “Sorry, OSHA requirement!”
I work for a large global company and they did this yesterday just before Biden spoke. Email saying mandatory vaccinations or you can apply to HR for an exception and supply a test every week. Applies to US corporate office. Because everyone will be vaccinated or tested weekly they are going to a ‘full return to the office’. End of working from home for me, at least at this company. Hard decision, stay with a company I like or look for a wfh position.
My reluctant cousin got vaccinated as ahe works at a gov. laboratory.
I have no idea if it is for religious reasons, we are catholic and in her parents’ cou try most are catholic and a huge majority already has the vaccine. Is there a difference between catholics in the USA and in other countries? I have no idea.
The Pope is vaccinated. There is no reason why Catholics cannot get this vaccine. Monoclonal antibodies may be a different story.
My parents are Canadian Catholics and very pro science and are vaccinated.
However I do know some people (BIL and sister in law of a friend) who are anti-vax, anti-mask and really conservative Catholic. In my experience it’s not a Catholic thing but a personality and gullibility thing. My friend’s anti-vax BIL and SIL are so overboard that they have even put off the SIL’s mother. The mom is a very conservative Catholic but not anti-vax or anti-mask and she has come to the realization that her daughter and son in law are a bit whackadoodle.
My Dad (and his family) is Catholic and I was raised Catholic: he is pro science and vaxxed. With the possible exception of his youngest sister and her family in Texas, everyone got vaxxed–we’re not in close contact with them at the moment. In the NLs, it’s ultra-religious, evangelical protestants who are refusing to be immunized for religious reasons. My family and friends (who have a Catholic background) in Ireland and France are all vaxxed. I believe that American Catholics may be more antivaxx due to political affiliation?
I’m going to be so happy when these idiots all get vaxxed, hospitals calm down and we can just take a breath and stop the never ending 24hr a day presence of Covid in our world…..just a little respite would be nice…..
my mother passed last summer from Covid and I’m the Covid point of contact at my company – I have to harass and chase people to get vaccinated to be at work. constantly having to defend getting vaccinated and try to convince these people….all the while wanting to scream at them that Covid killed my mom – get the f’n shot you inconsiderate a-hole…but alas, I’m professional….
I’m so sorry for the loss of your mom. It must be a herculean task to stay ‘professional’ in the face of coworkers who don’t want to get vaxxed. Stay strong and I hope you have some good methods for self-care!
My company mandated vaccines last week (or weekly testing) and one lady who had been here for years quit her job over it. She got all pissed off claiming “This is America and we have rights!” Well lady, you DO NOT have the right to potentially infect your co-workers because you won’t get the shot!
I love that he did this, and I am pleased that he is taking action. Seriously, he has pleaded, he has reasoned and presented medical data and scientific facts, has offered financial incentives and more already. Yet for the minority of some stubborn, willful, selfish and ignorant people (sorry to be mean, but come on) this was not enough. So yay for him. And Fox News being called out for their hypocrisy was the icing on the cake. Go Joe! And personally I like that he is one of those people that is nice as pie, will make multiple attempts to deal with you fairly, and truly a decent caring person….to a point, though, too a point. THEN, don’t tick him off 🙂 Good.
Well, I guess I’m not surprised:
https://www.newsweek.com/members-congress-staff-exempt-biden-covid-vaccine-mandate-1627859
It’s about time. Now this a president who gets stuff done. He’s tired of the pandemic too. This should have been over long ago, but no. These morons had to drag it out. Of course they don’t believe that it’s their fault. I’m sure that the MAGAT anti-vaxxer anti-maskers heads exploded over this. I can just hear them yell “tyrany!”. Good.
And he tried to reason with them. And then he had to get nasty.
Is it true that Congress, it’s staff, and postal workers are exempt from this mandate?
Yes, Congress is exempt from vaccines mandate. Everyone constantly ignores a statistical and scientific fact that this virus is 99.96% survivable. And before anyone attacks me, i am vaccinated and not allowed to live without a mask. Please post both sides of the argument
Antagonistic grandpa lol I’m glad that he is in charge now because he doesn’t have to tiptoe around for fear of undermining his political future. Call it as it is, handsome Joe!