[guest post by Dana]

CNN reports:

Federal workers will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated or will face losing their jobs, the White House said Thursday, ahead of President Biden’s speech officially announcing the change in policy.

“There will be limited exceptions for legally recognized reasons such as disability or religious objections,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a briefing.

She said the interagency task force would “provide a ramp up period, and we expect federal employees will have about 75 days to be fully vaccinated. That gives people more than enough time in our view to start and complete their vaccination series.”

“If a federal worker fails to comply,” she continued, “they will go through the Standard HR process, which includes counseling and face disciplinary action, face progressive disciplinary action. Each agency is going to work with employees to make sure they understand the benefits of vaccination and how the vaccines are free, easy and widely accessible, but it will start to be applied once the executive order is signed.”

Oh, and congratulations, America – we are now just behind Russia in the percentage of Americans skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine:

A survey conducted between August 24th and 30th by Morning Consult, an American pollster, found that 28% of Americans say they do not plan to get vaccinated or are unsure whether they will do so, more than double the average for the 15 countries surveyed. Only Russians are less enthusiastic.

A former Marine I know posted an image questioning whether people who feel badly about Americans and Afghan translators left behind in Afghanistan would feel an equal level of frustration and sympathy if members of the U.S. military were punished, court-martialed, or dishonorably discharged if they refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19. I don’t see it as a credible analogy for what I think are pretty obvious reasons. One has to wonder if these same members of the military (or former members) similarly protested the required double-digit number of vaccines they were given in preparation for deployments? This all goes to show the immense harm the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine has had.

And so it goes…

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

Some welcome news today:

The White House is set to withdraw David Chipman‘s nomination to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as soon as this week, according to multiple reports.

Two sources with knowledge of the decision told the Washington Post of the White House’s plans to rescind the nomination of the senior policy advisor to the gun control group Giffords. Several outlets have since confirmed the report.

Chipman faced universal opposition from Senate Republicans, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell who asked the White House to withdraw their nomination of the “anti-gun extremist.”

Senator Angus King (I., Maine) told the administration and Senate Democrats that he would not support Chipman’s nomination, while other moderate senators had remained non-committal on the appointment, according to the report.

A senior administration official reportedly told CNN that the White House decided to withdraw the nomination because “we do not have the votes,” adding that it expects to place Chipman in “a non-confirmed job in the administration.”

For a guy whom the lazy media was happy to portray as a moderate respite from the loony left wing of the Democrat Party, Joe Biden has certainly carried a lot of water for divisive social policies in his first nine months as President. Beyond the nomination of the hyper-partisan Xavier Becerra at HHS, the bullying hypocrite Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general, and the race-obsessed liar Kristen Clarke as assistant attorney general (all of whom were sadly pushed through sometimes with a bit of GOP help), President Biden has supported a Sandersesque dream budget which would set this country on a big government course that would be awfully difficult for a future administration or Congress to change. He has also adopted the worst aspects of the timid Obama foreign policy, and run them through the toxic sluice of his own ignorance yet unshakable belief that he has some sort of keen insight. So with that said it is welcome news to see that one of his worst nominees is being shown the exit door. More on Mr. Chipman:

Opponents to the nomination had expressed concern over Chipman’s past record on gun control. He spent 25 years at the ATF and, since retiring as a special agent in 2012, has worked as an anti-gun activist for several gun control groups.

He has claimed that he supports bans on “assault weapons” because they are nearly “identical to those used by the military.” However, Chipman declined to define what “assault weapon” meant when asked to do so by Senator John Kennedy (R., La.) during his confirmation hearing.

Chipman argued that the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons had “mixed results,” though studies show that the ban had negligible effect on criminality, which dropped after the law sunsetted.

During the COVID pandemic, he called on American governors to unilaterally shut down gun shops, arguing that “people who hoarded the guns might decide six months from now — once they see no zombies around, but they’ve run out of tuna and beef jerky — that they need the money to buy food.”

He also likened first-time gun owners to Joe Exotic of Tiger King, saying, “they might think that they’re die-hard, ready to go, but unfortunately they’re more like Tiger King, and they’re putting themselves and their family in danger.”

Moderate Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) warned that Chipman, if confirmed, would likely do “significant damage” to the relationships the ATF has with sporting and gun groups.

David Chipman has that special mixture of arrogance and self-righteousness leavened with a sneering contempt for the citizens he has been appointed to serve. Washington DC (and Sacramento and Albany and Austin and Denver, etc.) are full of this kind of twerp and it is important that they never be put in a position to implement their rancid ideas.

Despite having such a small Senate majority, Joe Biden has managed to push through more of his nominees than any first-term President in my memory. Even his old boss, who in his first term had a huge Senate majority to do his bidding, ran into trouble with the controversial nominations of Tom Daschle to HHS and Bill Richardson at the Commerce Department, both of which were withdrawn. So given that President Biden has been able to see his more troubling picks all the way to confirmation (with the exception of Neera Tanden, thankfully), it’s nice to note that an evenly-divided Senate is willing to set rules on how far it will go.

– JVW