Repealing The Military Vaccine Mandate

“I’ve tested positive for Covid. Thank goodness I’m vaccinated and have had four boosters, or I’d be in the hospital. Or dead.”

How many times have you heard that mantra in the past year? Too many to count, I suspect.

Proving one thing: The Covid vaccines don’t stop transmission of the virus nor do they keep people from getting sick.

It’s been argued that multiple shots prevent serious illness and death, but even that is questionable with recent CDC data showing that most Covid deaths - 6 out of every 10 -  now occur in vaccinated patients.

The majority of deaths continue to be among the elderly and those with serious disease, of course.

Despite this, the Biden administration has stubbornly clung to its pointless vaccine mandate for members of the military - young, healthy people - and thousands have been discharged for refusing the shots.

That vestige of Covid hysteria is about to go away. Over the strong protests of the Biden White House, House and Senate leaders announced yesterday that they’d hammered out the details of an $858 billion military policy measure that includes an end to the Covid vaccine mandate. Repeal of the military mandate was a deal breaker for Republicans who said they’d block passage of the bill if it wasn’t included.

It was the first sign of Republicans flexing their muscles in Congress. An excellent start.

In the days before the bill was finalized, as the number of Republicans threatening to oppose the bill without the rollback piled up, Democrats on Capitol Hill appeared ready to swallow the measure rolling back the vaccine mandate.

“I was a very strong supporter of the vaccine mandate when we did it,” Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington and the chairman of the Armed Services

Committee, told Politico, adding, “But at this point in time, does it make sense to have that policy from August 2021?”

No, it doesn’t, Congressman. It never made sense. Glad you came to your senses.

Credit should go to Rep. Kevin McCarthy who made scrapping the mandate a resume builder in his bid to become Speaker of the House when Republicans take the majority in January.

The New York Times reported:

In a statement on Tuesday night, Mr. McCarthy said he had made a personal appeal to Mr. Biden at the White House last week to lift the mandate, and called the move “a victory for our military and for common sense.” And he urged the Biden administration to go further, and re-enlist service members who had been discharged for refusing to take the vaccine.

“These heroes deserve justice now that the mandate is no more,” Mr. McCarthy said, though the proposal will still have to pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Mr. Biden to become law.

At a time when all branches of the military are struggling to hit their recruitment goals, the vaccine mandate made absolutely no sense.

The best news? Since most of those who were booted from the service for refusing to take the vaccine were given honorable or general discharges, they may be eligible to rejoin the military with the vaccine mandate gone.

Take them back. Every single one of them.