There is one line of thinking that says military readiness depends on enforcing the Covid-19 vaccination mandate among military personnel and defense contractors. That is, without vaccinating, the military and supporting infrastructure are ill-prepared and vulnerable. On the other hand, however, the country is set to lose thousands of troops and thousands of private defense contract workers due to Biden’s vaccine mandate, a situation that arguably and immediately leaves the country less prepared militarily. The situation is so dire, in fact, that some U.S. Senators have begun sounding the alarm and asking the Biden administration to remove his onerous vaccine mandate from private defense contractors to avoid severe disruptions in military preparedness.
The current Biden policy, which requires all federal contractors to follow the rules set forth for the entire federal workforce, would terminate workers who refuse to be vaccinated. This, according to Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, will hurt national security and instantly put the country in a dangerous position:
The Washington Examiner reviewed a letter Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville sent to the White House Tuesday afternoon claiming that Biden’s “federal contractor vaccine mandate will have negative effects on our national security” and called on the president “to remove — or, at a minimum, delay and clarify — vaccination requirements on private companies and academic research institutions that are actively supporting the Department of Defense.”
As Tuberville explains, this isn’t about being “anti-vax” or whatever nonsense gets heaved on anyone with an opposing point of view, it’s about threats of job loss on an industry that is charged with keeping the military functioning and keeping the country safe:
“I share your desire to see our country through the COVID-19 pandemic as quickly as possible, and, I — like you — have elected to take the vaccine. But your administration’s mandate is short-sighted, ill-conceived, and threatens our national security,” Tuberville wrote in a letter sent to the White House on Tuesday. “The American warfighter is ultimately harmed when skilled workers leave the defense contractor workforce, a foreseeable consequence of your order.”
Tuberville specifically noted that Alabama alone employed nearly 100,000 federal contractors in 2020, and “more than 5,000 contractors who support the Department of Defense.”
Tuberville is not alone in his concerns. The CEO of Raytheon, a large defense contractor with facilities all over the country, has warned that his company stands to lose thousands of employees if they’re forced to fire workers who aren’t granted a vaccine accommodation:
“We will lose several thousand people,” Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said on CNBC Tuesday. “It’s not just the prime contractors, but it’s also all of our subcontractors that need to follow that mandate as well.”
Several companies, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have already faced worker backlash, specifically in opposition to planned deadlines that workers must abide by, or risk losing their jobs:
Roughly 100 employees at United Launch Alliance, a joint venture funded by Lockheed Martin and Boeing that contracts to both the Department of Defense and NASA, walked off the job Monday over the federal government’s vaccine mandates and pledged to continue protesting in the days leading up to the deadline to be vaccinated.
It seems inconceivable that this issue remains a festering problem that threatens to tank the U.S. economy and harm national security, and the Biden administration doesn’t seem to care. The goal is 100% vaccination, and anyone questioning that goal must be “anti-vax” and simply ignorant to the risk. Quite the opposite is true, of course, people refusing the vaccine have usually done their homework and have legitimate reasons for refusal, but logic and reasoning are not the prevailing tools with which this issue is being debated.
Other Senators, like Marsha Blackburn of Tennesee, have been trying to prevent front line workers, another arm of national security, from being fired if they do not comply with Covid vaccine mandates:
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn also introduced the Keeping Our COVID-19 Heroes Employed Act on Monday, a piece of legislation that would prevent COVID-19 front-line workers from losing their jobs if they refuse to get vaccinated.
The insanity in all this is that vast numbers of workers and military personnel are vaccinated, but no number seems to be good enough to satisfy the Covid vaccine maximalists within the Biden administration and Democrat-controlled states around the country. It’s an “all or nothing” approach where 100% compliance is required, or job loss is the prevailing punishment.
Some of the same people that spent their time since March of 2020 caring for Covid patients and fighting on the pandemic front lines will be tossed out on the street and labeled as “anti-vax quacks” for refusing a medical procedure they don’t want and in many cases don’t need thanks to natural immunity.
These concerns seem to be falling on deaf ears as the White House, a bumbling train of incompetence wrapped in a clown car, calls it all political theater:
The White House did not respond to inquiries on the subject by press time, but senior officials have repeatedly characterized vaccine mandate opposition from Republicans as prioritizing individual political prospects over the public health concerns of their constituents.
Once again, from the Biden administration, the answer is government always knows best, and the people are too stupid to decide for themselves. It’s rich coming from a party that spent the past several decades screaming “my body, my choice” to now turn around and take medical choices away in the name of Covid vaccine absolutism.
As always on this topic, the issue is likely to get worse before it gets better. The federal mandate deadline kicks in on Dec. 8, so the ongoing pressure from various industries will become more intense as the deadline looms closer.
