Mike Brest reported Tuesday at the Washington Examiner that the “House of Representatives has come to an agreement to put language in the annual defense funding bill that would end the Pentagon’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for service members against President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s stances.”
While inclusion of this mandate repeal in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would be a big step against the Biden administration’s effort to pressure people to take the experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots that have turned out to be neither safe nor effective despite endless repetition from politicians and in the media otherwise, it would not guarantee any relief for the many individuals who have lost their jobs due to their refusal to take the shots. But, there is indication that that may also be addressed, to some extent, in the NDAA. Brest wrote:
While the bill will remove the mandate, it will not reinstate the thousands of service members who have already been separated from the military for their refusal to get the vaccine without an approved exemption, Fox News reported. Lawmakers on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are also looking to include language that would permit the department to look into the status of the service members affected by the mandate.
The NDAA is considered must-pass legislation by politicians in Washington, DC intent on maintaining and expanding US military power. While the bill is just about sure to pass, there is reason for concern that this provision added to the House version may not survive in the final bill presented to the president for signing into law. This comment in Brest’s article, though, provides some indication that the provision may have rather smooth sailing through the legislative process: “White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said the president told House House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the favorite to be next House speaker, that he ‘would consider’ lifting the mandate.”
Thomas Massie, a Republican House member from Kentucky as well as a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, introduced a bill (HR 3860) in June of last year to terminate the shots mandate for military members. His bill has garnered 92 cosponsors — all Republicans, but no House committee hearings or House floor consideration. But for Massie’s bill, cosponsored by many members who will be in the new congressional majority in January and likely the topic of many queries to House members from constituents, would the elimination of the mandate have made it into the House’s NDAA? This may be an example of a bill that went nowhere in the normal legislative process ending up making a big difference.
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