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Southwest Standoff

Southwest Standoff
The battle over Biden’s vaccine mandate heats up.
By Lloyd Billingsley

Southwest Airlines cancelled nearly 2,000 flights over the weekend, by some accounts nearly 30 percent of its scheduled traffic. Southwest bosses blamed bad weather, but for canceled passengers that made no sense.

“The weather is fine in all connecting areas, there’s no bad weather,” Southwest passenger B.J. Romero told reporters. “There’s got to be something behind the scenes they’re not telling us.” That was true of the airline, aviation bureaucrats, the establishment media, and the Biden Junta.

Biden has announced mandatory vaccine and testing policies for companies with at least 100 employees. Major carriers Southwest, American and Delta were encouraging workers to get vaccinated, and in August Delta reported that 75 percent of its workforce had been vaccinated without a mandate. By contrast, United Airlines has demanded that its workers get vaccinated by October 25 or face dismissal.

On October 4, Southwest announced that its workforce of 56,000 must be vaccinated by December 8 to continue their employment with the airline. Southwest executives claimed they had no choice because the airline acts as a federal contractor, flying Afghan evacuees and such, and Biden’s rules for such contractors are stricter than the 100-employee mandate. Contractors must be vaccinated, unless they are granted a religious or medical exemption.

Adverse reactions to a vaccine could affect pilots’ ability to pass periodic medical examinations required to maintain their license. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) filed a lawsuit (Southwest Airlines Pilots Association v. Southwest Airlines Co., 3:21-cv-02065-M) contending that the vaccine requirement imposes new conditions of employment and violates the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which governs relations between airlines and unions.

Southwest disagreed that any Covid-related changes over the past several months require negotiation. On Friday, SWAPA asked a federal judge temporarily to block Southwest from carrying out federally mandated coronavirus vaccinations until their lawsuit is resolved. Two days later, Southwest cancelled nearly 2,000 flights and blamed the weather and air traffic control issues. The parties continue to point fingers, but passengers should have no doubt that the Biden vaccine mandateis to blame.

Joe Biden isn’t saying how many Covid cases have derived from unvaccinated airline pilots, who are sealed off from passengers during flights. The government is not exactly clear about the medical and religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate. The pilots can’t be blamed for concern about adverse reactions that might affect their ability to earn a living.

As embattled Americans may recall, the original purpose of vaccines was to protect vulnerable populations such as the elderly, the obese, and those suffering from heart and respiratory problems. Southwest employs pilots as young as 23 and pilots must retire at age 65. This is not the profile of a high-risk group, and the government is also sketchy on the efficacy of the vaccines currently in play.

According to data from the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, the only approved vaccine is COMIRNATY, and vaccines from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are for emergency use and have a liability shield. Sweden and Denmark have banned the Moderna vaccine for those under age 30 after a rise myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, swelling and irritation of the pericardium, the saclike tissue surrounding the heart.

Those under age 30 would include many airline pilots and employees. All told, the Biden Junta assumes the vaccine mandate poses no risk to anyone, deploys vaccines of undetermined safety, and targets populations not among the high-risk groups. For Joe Biden, “This is not about freedom or personal choice, it’s about protecting yourself and those around you.”

The ventriloquist here is surely Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief white coat supremacist, a non-practicing MD whose bio includes no advanced degrees in biochemistry or molecular biology. A government bureaucrat since 1968, Fauci has reversed himself on many aspects of the pandemic and now claims that to criticize him is to criticize science itself. If embattled Americans called that megalomania it would be hard to blame them.

In an October 1 virtual lecture for McGill University in Montreal, Fauci stated: “There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.” This is a purely political statement, as Dan Gelernter noted, “the intellectual kernel of and justification for totalitarianism.”

In similar style, the Biden Junta’s vaccine mandate is all about control. It’s the Delaware Democrat’s way or the highway, where gasoline prices are topping $5 a gallon in some areas.

Meanwhile, Southwest’s weekend woes continued on Monday, a federal holiday, with 350 flights cancelled and more than 300 delayed. This cancel culture traces back to the Biden Junta’s vaccine mandate, and as the holiday season approaches, passengers should expect more of the same.

This effectively reverses a famous Southwest Airlines slogan. Under the Biden Junta, you are not free to move about the country.

Original Article

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