Editor’s Commentary: We’ve heard many complaints from Republicans on Capitol Hill about the opening volley of the Green New Deal, also known as the $3.5 trillion spending bill. But one that is conspicuously missing from the feckless GOP’s rants is the fact that tucked into the bill are requirements for tremendous fines that could cripple businesses if they don’t comply. Dr. Joseph Mercola goes into detail about those fines below.
... we’re seeing a whole lot of Republican lawmakers pointing out every other negative in the spending monstrosity while ignoring the topic that deserves the lion’s share of their attention. The Democrats are disastrous for our nation, but weakness in the vast majority of Republican lawmakers isn’t helping the fight for our freedoms."
"Buried in the massive $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” bill is an unconstitutional vaccine enforcement mechanism that threatens to bankrupt businesses unless they force their employees to get a COVID-19 injection.
If the measure is enacted into law, even employers that respect their employees’ rights to health freedom and informed consent would be left with an impossible decision
— mandate COVID-19 jabs or essentially go out of business due to unbearable fines.
The White House announced in September 2021 that companies with 100 or more employees would have to ensure staff have gotten a COVID-19 injection or were tested regularly for COVID-19.
The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is to be in charge of enforcing the rule, which will affect more than 80 million U.S. workers.(1)
In order to carry out this draconian measure, OSHA plans to use an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) — a drastic measure used to accelerate new orders that has only been attempted 10 times in the agency’s 50-year history.
OSHA would also be able to enforce fines of up to $13,600 per violation of the rules — but the new measure tucked into the reconciliation bill raises the fines for noncompliance astronomically.
Before we get any further, it should be noted that the mandate doesn’t actually exist yet, in that it hasn’t been sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for approval, and it’s not yet a legally enforceable mandate.
Still, by announcing it as though it’s an inevitable rule, it may have the same effect of triggering workers to get vaccinated — or allowing companies to enact mandates under the veil of the government “mandate.”(2)
$700,000 Fines for Businesses That Don’t Force Injections
On page 168 of the 2,465-page bill3 is wording that should send an authoritarian chill down the back of anyone who believes in health freedom.
It outlines fines for employers that “willfully,” “repeatedly” or seriously violate the labor law, including by not requiring COVID-19 jabs or regular COVID-19 testing.
As Forbes reported:(4)
“The increased fines on employers could run as high as $70,000 for serious infractions, and $700,000 for willful or repeated violations
— almost three-quarters of a million dollars for each fine.
If enacted into law, vax enforcement could bankrupt non-compliant companies even more quickly than the $14,000 OSHA fine anticipated under Biden’s announced mandate.”
In case you missed it, that $700,000 fine is for each violation,
meaning it would bankrupt all but the very largest corporations if they don’t fully comply with COVID-19 jab mandates
or take on the cost of weekly COVID-19 testing of their employees.
Currently, the fines only apply to businesses with 100 or more employees, but there’s nothing stopping them from changing it to 50 employees — or one employee.
Anything could happen at this point.
Some, such as Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have called on businesses to “openly rebel” against the OSHA rule.
But as Forbes put it:(5)
“It’s one thing to defy a $14,000 fine.
It’s quite another to risk incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
One or two disgruntled employees, for example, could bring an employer $70,000-$140,000 in OSHA fines.
If considered ‘willful,’ as per Rep. Roy’s tweet — just three ‘violations’ could quickly become a $2.1 million OSHA fine.”
The Mandate Doesn’t Actually Exist
As mentioned, the mandate that President Biden announced is currently a “mirage.”(6)
Speaking with The Federalist, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration explained, “There is nothing there yet that gives employers any mandate.
The president made an announcement on this asking OSHA to do it, but we’ve not yet seen anything come from it yet.”(7)
An ETS may take six months to go into effect even after the mandate is put in the Federal Register — which hasn’t happened yet.
OSHA’s COVID-19 Healthcare ETS also makes no mention of vaccine mandates at this time.(8)
ETS rules are also often overturned in court.
In the last five decades, courts have challenged six of the 10 ETS standards that have been suggested, with five of the six getting overturned.(9)
However, using the ETS for the “mandate,” the Federalist pointed out, “allows the Biden administration to push its demands faster
and without any public input or requirement of responding to public input,
which is normally required of even legally laughable federal rule making like this one would be.”(10)
This may be why more lawsuits haven’t been filed to challenge the mandate — there’s nothing to challenge just yet.
It’s also worth mentioning that less than 2% of U.S. businesses will be affected by the mandate, as more than 98% of U.S. businesses have fewer than 100 employees, exempting them from the mandate.
Still, those 2% account for about two-thirds of U.S. employees, so they’re a sizeable minority.(11)
Many of these large corporations have already put injection mandates into place or were planning to.
The “mandate” announcement allows these mega-corporations to mandate the jabs without having to be the bad guy.
Congressmen Try to Block ‘Tyrannical Vaccine Mandate’
Roy and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced a bill — the No Taxation Without Congressional Consent Act — September 30, 2021,
that would prohibit the federal government from imposing a fine, fee or tax on individuals or businesses for violating a COVID-19 vaccine mandate issued by OSHA or other agencies.
If it passes, it would prevent the outrageous fines threatening to bankrupt small businesses under the reconciliation bill. Roy said:(12)
“Your decision about whether or not to get a COVID vaccine should be yours and yours alone … [the] proposed mandate is unconstitutional, and flat-out tyrannical.
No freedom-loving American should comply.
This country needs, and her people deserve, healthcare freedom.
That means taking control over our care back from politicians and bureaucrats.
I am proud to introduce this legislation with my good friend Senator Mike Lee to gut the federal government’s ability to enforce this unconstitutional mandate.”
Further, being unvaxxed is not a crime.
Allowing for these exorbitant fines only further attempts to segregate society into one of vaxxed versus unvaxxed. But, as Lee added:(13)
“Unvaccinated Americans aren’t the enemy.
We should not be forcing employers to fire some of their valuable, and now hard to find, workers.
We shouldn’t be threatening business owners with closure who do not wish to police their workforce’s decisions.
Many simply cannot incur the cost of this enforcement in this economy.”
Jab Mandates Are Spreading
Vaccine mandates are targeting every angle, from places of employment to restaurants, gyms and sports arenas.
Los Angeles recently approved one of the strictest mandates in the U.S. and will require a vaccine passport to enter indoor public spaces like shopping malls, museums, restaurants, spas and other locations.(14)
California also became the first U.S. state to require students in kindergarten through grade 12 to receive COVID-19 shots following full FDA approval.(15)
Council president Nury Martinez called the move “a necessary step towards returning to normalcy,” but there’s nothing “normal” about presenting proof of an injection to go about your daily life.(16)
This, however, is what the “new normal” is all about — increasing surveillance and authoritarian control while removing personal liberties, and vaccine passports have always been part of the plan.
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2030 agenda is part and parcel of what is now advertised as The Great Reset,(17)
a plan that originated in something called the Global Redesign Initiative, drafted by the WEF in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.
The Transnational Institute’s website describes the initiative as “multi-stakeholderism,” a “corporate push for a new form of global governance.”(18)
Vaccine Passports as Part of the ‘New Normal’
WEF and the Commons Project created the Common Trust Network, which developed the CommonPass app that’s acting as a health passport.
The app allows users to upload medical data such as a COVID-19 test result or proof of injection, which then generates a QR code that you show to authorities as your health passport.(19)
Eventually, the CommonPass framework will be integrated with already existing personal health apps such as Apple Health and CommonHealth.
If you want to travel, your personal health record will be evaluated and compared to a country’s entry requirements,
and if you don’t meet them, you’ll be directed to an approved testing and vaccination location.
WEF is pushing for the World Health Organization’s collaboration, stating:(20)
“Rather than building a set of rules that would be left to the interpretation of member states or private-sector operators like cruises, airlines or conveners of gatherings,
we support the WHO’s effort to create a standard for member states for requesting vaccinations and how it would permit the various kinds of use cases.
It is important that we rely on the normative body (the WHO) to create the vaccine credential requirements.
The Forum is involved in the WHO taskforce to reflect on those standards and think about how they would be used.”
This, too, is disturbing, since WHO’s history clearly illustrates its allegiance to Big Pharma and other industries.
A review in the Journal of Integrative Medicine & Therapy went so far as to say the corruption of WHO is the “biggest threat to the world’s public health of our time,”
particularly as it relates to WHO’s drug recommendations
— including its “list of essential medicines”
— which it believes is biased and not reliable.(21)
Given the strong and ongoing evidence that WHO is heavily conflicted and controlled by industry, its usefulness as a guardian of public health
— and an arbiter of vaccine passports
— needs to be seriously reevaluated.
Obey or You’ll Get Fined
Threats of punishment like fines have become increasingly common and accepted during the pandemic.
Both Roy and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., were fined for not wearing face masks on the House floor, for instance.
The initial fine for such an offense is $500, but since this was Greene’s second “offense,” she was fined $2,500.22
In the U.K., meanwhile, there’s the NHS COVID app, which notifies you if you’ve been in close contact
(defined as within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more)
with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
If you don’t self-isolate after being notified, you can be fined £1,000 ($1,390) or more.(23)
Other penalties are also being rolled out for those who choose not to get the injection.
On August 25, 2021, Delta Air Lines announced that unvaccinated employees who are on the company health plan will have a $200 monthly surcharge added, beginning November 1, 2021.(24)
It’s yet another example of the injection-only mindset that has proliferated since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. and much of the world, COVID-19 is still being regarded as a disease that should only be treated once a person is hospitalized.
At that point, the person is already seriously ill and has missed the opportunity for inexpensive, early treatment options that have shown significant success in reducing rates of hospitalization and death.(25)
The penalties and punishments also reek of coercion.
One of the principles of the Nuremberg Code is that humans must give voluntary consent when participating in medical experiments, and that consent must be given, among other things,
“without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.”(26)
Given the emergency use authorization, not approval, the mass jab administration constituted a research trial.
While the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 jab received FDA approval August 23, 2021, the injection’s approval represents the fastest approval in history,(27)
granted less than four months after Pfizer filed for licensing May 7, 2021.(28)
So, for all intents and purposes, it’s still in the research phase.
It’s quite possible that the decision to penalize people for choosing to avoid a COVID-19 injection could be seen as a form of coercion.
What About Natural Immunity?
The other glaring issue is there’s no mention of natural immunity.
It’s the elephant in the room that the mainstream COVID-19 narrative refuses to acknowledge.
A sizable number of Americans already have natural immunity from a prior COVID-19 infection.
How can you threaten a person with fines or loss of employment to get an injection for a disease to which they’re already immune?
This is likely to prompt more than a few lawsuits, especially since it’s been shown that natural immunity may protect you significantly better than an injection.
Data presented July 17, 2021, to the Israeli Health Ministry revealed that,
of the more than 7,700 COVID-19 cases reported since May 2021, only 72 occurred in people who had previously had COVID-19
— a rate of less than 1%.
In contrast, more than 3,000 cases — or approximately 40% — occurred in people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine.(29)
It’s important to keep your eyes open at this point in history and resist the insidious removal of freedoms from society that’s currently occurring.
In their place are empty promises to give you your freedom back if you submit to an injection, a mask, a lockdown.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for example, recently stated that vaccine passports are “all about” letting you know that “if you’ve done the right things, you get to be safe” wherever you go.(30)
And those who refuse to do “the right thing,” well, they simply aren’t entitled to those same “freedoms.”
The disease countermeasures we currently see for COVID-19 won’t end with COVID-19, and fines for business owners who choose not to force their employees to make a certain medical decision are only the beginning.
We must not continue down this rabbit hole.
Now is the time to speak out in peaceful protest in order to compel positive changes in support of health and overall freedom."
- 1 Reuters September 13, 2021
- 2, 7, 9, 10 The Federalist October 7, 2021
- 3 Reconciliation Bill September 25, 2021
- 4, 5 Forbes September 28, 2021
- 6, 11 Time September 21, 2021
- 8 OSHA, COVID-19 Healthcare ETS
- 12, 13 Chip Roy, Texas September 30, 2021
- 14, 16 AP October 7, 2021
- 15 Office of Governor Gavin Newsom October 1, 2021
- 17 World Economic Forum 2030Vision
- 18 Transnational Institute Global Redesign Initiative (Archived)
- 19 CNN December 27, 2020
- 20 World Economic Forum May 5, 2021
- 21 Journal of Integrative Medicine & Therapy January 2015 Vol. 2, Issue 1
- 22 Upolitics September 12, 2021
- 23 BBC News July 23, 2021
- 24 CBS News August 25, 2021
- 25 European Journal of Medical & Health Sciences 2020; 2(6)
- 26 U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Nuremberg Code
- 27 The Defender August 23, 2021
- 28 Pfizer May 7, 2021
- 29 Israel National News July 13, 2021
- 30 Twitter Rebel News September 19, 2021