“A federal appeals court in New Orleans has halted the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing requirement for private businesses, delivering another political setback to one of the White House’s signature public health policies.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, helmed by one judge who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and two others who were appointed by President Donald Trump, issued the ruling Friday, after temporarily halting the mandate last weekend in response to lawsuits filed by Republican-aligned businesses and legal groups.
Calling the requirement a ‘mandate,’ the court said the rule, instituted through the Labor Department, ‘grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority,’ according to the opinion, written by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt and joined by Judges Edith H. Jones and Stuart Kyle Duncan.
‘Rather than a delicately handled scalpel, the Mandate is a one-size fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers) that have more than a little bearing on workers’ varying degrees of susceptibility to the supposedly ‘grave danger’ the Mandate purports to address,’ they wrote.
They said they believed that the ruling imposed a financial burden on businesses and potentially violated the commerce clause of the Constitution.
‘The Mandate imposes a financial burden upon them by deputizing their participation in OSHA’s regulatory scheme, exposes them to severe financial risk if they refuse or fail to comply, and threatens to decimate their workforces (and business prospects) by forcing unwilling employees to take their shots, take their tests, or hit the road,’ they wrote.
The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit is considered one of the country’s most conservative appeals courts.
The vaccine mandate was released by the Biden administration last week after weeks of deliberation. It says private employers with more than 100 employees must require staff to get vaccinated — or face weekly testing and mandatory masking. Workers who don’t work on-site or with others are able to be exempted.
Even though the testing option makes it softer than many of the requirements instituted by private companies and state and municipal governments, it has faced strong blowback from a chorus of conservative groups, businesses and mostly Republican officials.
The court halted the policy, scheduled to take effect Jan. 4, and ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration not to take further steps to implement or enforce the mandate. It is not clear whether the 5th Circuit will determine the fate of the mandate. The Biden administration had asked the 5th Circuit to hold off on ruling until a judicial lottery can take place next week to consolidate several challenges to the mandate before a single appeals court.” Read more at Washington Post
“Former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon was charged Friday with two counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He was indicted by a grand jury in Washington — a rare move by the Justice Department to escalate the consequences of a dispute involving Congress. Court records indicate only three such cases have been filed in D.C. since 1990.
The charges against Bannon each carry a maximum sentence of one year in jail and may serve as a warning to others seeking to avoid or defy the Jan. 6 committee.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in a news release said the charges reflect the Justice Department’s commitment to ‘show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law.’” Read more at Washington Post
“Nearly 14 years after a Los Angeles court deemed the pop sensation Britney Spears unable to care for herself, stripping the singer of control in nearly every aspect of her life, a judge ruled on Friday to end the conservatorship that Ms. Spears said had long traumatized and exploited her.
‘The conservatorship of the person and estate of Britney Jean Spears is no longer required,’ Judge Brenda Penny said, making her ruling less than half an hour into the brief hearing. ‘The conservatorship is hereby terminated.’
The judge added that further psychological assessments of Ms. Spears were unnecessary, because the conservatorship was technically voluntary. But Judge Penny said that the current conservator of the singer’s estate would continue working to settle ongoing financial concerns related to the case.
James P. Spears, Ms. Spears’s father, who is known as Jamie, first petitioned the court for authority over his adult daughter’s life and finances in early 2008, citing her very public mental health struggles and possible substance abuse amid a child custody battle. What began as a temporary conservatorship was made permanent by the end of the year.” Read more at Washington Post
American workers set a resignation record
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million people quit their jobs in September, up from 4.3 million in August. September’s number represents 3 percent of the US workforce, a record rate” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post/Eli Rosenberg
“People are leaving their jobs for several reasons, including challenges with child care due to the pandemic, to start businesses of their own, or simply quitting for better pay. The record number of workers quitting — not being fired, laid off, or transferred within the same company — indicates ‘increasing confidence workers have in securing better-paid jobs elsewhere,’ according to Michael Pearce, a senior US economist with Capital Economics. [Vox] Read more at CBS News / Aimee Picchi
“The highest number of people quitting were in the arts, entertainment, and leisure sector, with 56,000; the services sector, with 47,000; and public education, with 30,000. Layoffs and firings stayed essentially the same, at 0.9 percent or 1.4 million.” [Vox] Read more at Bureau of Labor Statistics
“The quit rate at least partially contributes to the continued labor shortage choking multiple points in the supply chain, which has faced increasing snarls throughout the course of the pandemic.” [Vox] Read more at The Hill / Sylvan Lane and Karl Evers-Hillstrom
“It also speaks to the power of labor, on its back foot for decades, increasingly demanding better conditions, better pay, and better benefits for workers as corporate profits — and inflation — continue to rise. Multiple worker strikes and walkouts earned the last month the moniker ‘Striketober,’ and that could carry on into the future.” [Vox] Read more at NPR / Ailsa Chang, Alejandra Marquez Janse, and Courtney Dorning
“Despite the staggering number of workers who’ve quit, the economy showed major gains last month, adding 531,000 jobs, mostly in the service industry and manufacturing.” [Vox] Read more at NYT / Nelson D. Schwartz and Talmon Joseph Smith
“The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse is once again exposing the deep fissures in American life — divides so deep that the people on each side seem to see two entirely different realities.
Rittenhouse is on trial for murder after fatally shooting two people, and wounding a third, last year.
Rittenhouse, who was then 17, traveled, armed with an assault-style rifle, from his home in Antioch, Ill., to Kenosha, Wis., when protests erupted after police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back. Rittenhouse had previously expressed support for cops amid uproar over police killings of Black people.
Those facts are just about the only ones on which everyone agrees.
To progressives, and particularly to Black activists, Rittenhouse’s case is the embodiment of a fundamentally biased policing and justice system.
They look at every step of the path Rittenhouse has traveled and ask what would have happened had a Black teen done exactly the same things.
‘All these things form a composite picture of a criminal justice system,’ said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a radio host, commentator and the author of several books about Black life. ‘That’s why you see so many African Americans on social media, where the one theme that comes through over and over again is — ‘double-standard,’ ‘double standard,’ 'double standard.’’
On the night of the shootings, Rittenhouse had strolled the streets of Kenosha armed with an assault-style rifle that he was too young to legally possess. No police officer appears to have confronted him. In fact, he and other conservative protesters were handed water bottles and thanked by police.
Even after the shootings took place, Rittenhouse was not immediately arrested, and walked past police vehicles freely.
Once he was charged and had bail set at $2 million, a huge fundraising effort was launched, successfully, to meet the bond. As his trial began, the judge — in one of many contested rulings and interventions — said that the word ‘victims’ was not to be used about the people whom Rittenhouse had shot.
Meanwhile, the teen has found support among conservative politicians and media figures.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has called him an ‘innocent child.’ Former President Trump once sympathized that Rittenhouse had found himself in ‘very big trouble’ and ‘probably would have been killed.’ Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he had shown ‘incredible restraint.’
Rittenhouse’s mother once received a standing ovation at a Republican Party gathering.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has portrayed Rittenhouse as a patriot who has been left exposed to legal peril because ‘legitimate authority refuses to do its sworn duty.’
That idea was echoed on the same network by Greg Gutfeld this week.
‘Kyle’s victims, the two dead guys, deserved better from the government. But they didn’t deserve better from Kyle,’ he said. ‘He did the right thing. He did what the government should have done.’
The controversy has migrated outside the political arena into a broader cultural furor. NBA star LeBron James accused Rittenhouse of faking when the defendant appeared to break down while offering testimony in his own defense.
‘Man, knock it off,’ James tweeted. ‘That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court.’
That, in turn, sparked a fierce, if predictable, conservative counter-reaction. J.D. Vance, the conservative author seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, jabbed James as ‘a wealthy grown man making fun of a kid.’
Rittenhouse, in short, has been turned into a canvas upon which people project their feelings about any number of visceral issues roiling the nation: policing, racial justice, Black Lives Matter, Trump, gun control and more.
Progressive figures blast Rittenhouse’s defenders as part of a conservative backlash.
‘It’s people of the mindset that ‘America is pretty darn good, what are you complaining about?’ said civil rights attorney William O. Wagstaff III. ‘They saw people who were outraged about a Black man being shot in the back as crybabies or looters and rioters.’
But Rittenhouse’s status as an emblem of bigger issues has made the complexities of the evidence presented at his trial all the more divisive.
For example, the one person who survived being shot by Rittenhouse, Gaige Grosskreutz, ostensibly a prosecution witness, may have ultimately helped the defense. Grosskreutz acknowledged that he himself was armed, and that Ritttenhouse did not fire at him even when he could see his gun — until Grosskreutz pointed the gun directly at the defendant from a short distance away.
Another witness said he had recalled one of the men killed by Rittenhouse shouting, ‘If I catch any of you guys alone tonight I’m going to f---ing kill you.’
That has left many people doubtful that Rittenhouse will be convicted — and has invigorated conservative criticism of much of the mainstream media coverage of the Rittenhouse case.
Closing arguments in the case are expected Monday.” Read more at The Hill
“Attorneys have brought 93 lawsuits in the Astroworld festival stampede, suing rapper Travis Scott and the concert promoter Live Nation.” [Vox] Read more at Rolling Stone / Ethan Millman
The Trump administration repeatedly interfered with efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year to issue warnings and guidance about the evolving coronavirus pandemic, six current and former health officials told congressional investigators in recent interviews.
One of those officials, former CDC senior health expert Nancy Messonnier, warned in a Feb. 25, 2020, news briefing that the virus’s spread in the United States was inevitable — a statement that prompted anger from President Donald Trump and led to the agency’s media appearances being curtailed, according to interview excerpts and other documents released Friday by the House select subcommittee on the pandemic.
The new information, including statements from former White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx, confirms prior reporting and offers additional detail on how the pandemic response unfolded at the highest levels of government.” Read more at Washington Post
“Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order allowing all adults to receive Covid-19 boosters, as cases increase there.” [Vox] Read more at CBS
“Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) YouTube account was suspended for one week starting Friday for uploading content violating the platform’s policy against COVID-19 misinformation.
The video that triggered the suspension was a roundtable discussion in which the lawmaker falsely claimed that coronavirus vaccines are unsafe.” Read more at The Hill
“Austria plans to put millions of unvaccinated citizens in lockdown, a move Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said he hoped would be approved this weekend.” [Vox] Read more at CNN / Rob Picheta and Nadine Schmidt
“On a recent episode of his podcast, Rick Wiles, a pastor and self-described ‘citizen reporter,’ endorsed a conspiracy theory: that Covid-19 vaccines were the product of a ‘global coup d’état by the most evil cabal of people in the history of mankind.’
‘It’s an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body,’ Mr. Wiles said on his Oct. 13 episode. ‘This is like a sci-fi nightmare, and it’s happening in front of us.’
Mr. Wiles belongs to a group of hosts who have made false or misleading statements about Covid-19 and effective treatments for it. Like many of them, he has access to much of his listening audience because his show appears on a platform provided by a large media corporation.
Mr. Wiles’s podcast is available through iHeart Media, an audio company based in San Antonio that says it reaches nine out of 10 Americans each month. Spotify and Apple are other major companies that provide significant audio platforms for hosts who have shared similar views with their listeners about Covid-19 and vaccination efforts, or have had guests on their shows who promoted such notions.
Scientific studies have shown that vaccines will protect people against the coronavirus for long periods and have significantly reduced the spread of Covid-19. As the global death toll related to Covid-19 exceeds five million — and at a time when more than 40 percent of Americans are not fully vaccinated — iHeart, Spotify, Apple and many smaller audio companies have done little to rein in what radio hosts and podcasters say about the virus and vaccination efforts.” Read more at New York Times
“Jon Gruden, who resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders last month after The New York Times published details of emails in which he had made homophobic, misogynistic and racist remarks, is suing the N.F.L. and its commissioner, Roger Goodell, for what Gruden’s lawyers contend was a plot to smear his reputation and ruin his career.” Read more at New York Times
“Republican Jack Ciattarelli conceded his electoral loss to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday and said his campaign wouldn’t pursue a recount in the closer-than-expected contest.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“In the annals of the Supreme Court, the Plessy v. Ferguson case has little competition for the title of Worst Decision in History.
Now, 129 years after the shameful decision that codified the Jim Crow-era ‘separate but equal’ fiction, the namesake of that famous case, Homer Plessy, may be pardoned. The Louisiana Board of Pardons unanimously approved a pardon Friday, according to the Associated Press, sending it to Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) for final approval.” Read more at Washington Post
“Former ‘Apprentice’ contestant Summer Zervos on Friday announced that she would drop her 2017 lawsuit alleging former president Donald Trump had defamed her by denying he had sexually assaulted her years earlier.
Zervos did not give a reason for ending the case, which had advanced far enough that attorneys were discussing when Trump might be questioned in a deposition.” Read more at Washington Post
“Project Veritas, the conservative group under scrutiny in a Justice Department investigation of how a diary kept by President Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden was published days before the 2020 election, has told a federal judge that it received a diary from two people who said they had legally obtained it after she had abandoned it.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — President Biden announced Friday that he would nominate Dr. Robert Califf, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to lead the agency again. His decision ends nearly a year of political wrangling as the White House vetted then dropped several candidates after complaints that some were too close to the pharmaceutical industry.
In the end, White House officials might have concluded that they could not find a suitable candidate with no industry ties. Califf, 70, a respected academic and clinical trial researcher who ran the agency during the last year of the Obama administration, has long been a consultant to drug companies and ran a research center at Duke University that received some funding from the drug industry.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Taylor Swift’s rerecorded songs are outperforming their original counterparts on streaming services, going viral on TikTok and landing lucrative licensing deals—all of which is wresting control and earnings from the owners of her early recorded music catalog. On Friday, she released the latest batch of rerecordings, a new version of her 2012 hit album “Red.”
Ms. Swift’s success with the recordings over the past year highlights why her label company, Universal Music Group UMG -1.50% NV, has been trying to protect its rights with other artists who later might want to rerecord their songs.
In its recent agreements, Universal has been effectively doubling the amount of time that the contracts restrict an artist from rerecording their work, according to music attorneys and executives. At a time when making—or remaking—and distributing music is easier and cheaper than ever, Universal, the world’s largest label company, is moving to protect its investments in artists’ work.
Recording nearly identical covers of her early albums is the latest step in Ms. Swift’s long legal tussle to control her back catalog and musical legacy. Two years ago, she grew frustrated after attempting unsuccessfully to buy the master-recording copyrights as they changed hands twice against her wishes. They ultimately landed with Los Angeles-based investment firm Shamrock Capital Advisors last year. Universal, which distributes Ms. Swift’s recordings, new and old, benefits from all of her music.
Both Ms. Swift’s ambitious project and Universal’s contract changes with its artists illustrate the shifting power dynamics in the music business, which has been upended by streaming. Meanwhile, the rocketing value of music copyrights has come into focus for both artists and investors.
The stricter rerecording parameters are part of a broader overhaul of Universal’s standard recording agreement in response to the changing industry, according to a person with knowledge of the contracts, who said the changes predate Ms. Swift’s rerecording endeavor.
While other artists have rerecorded their music to varying degrees of success, Ms. Swift’s public crusade to gain ownership of her life’s work has garnered broad support from fans and new listeners alike, and encouraged other artists to seek control over their music.” Read more at Wall Street Journal