Senate votes to repeal CDC’s mask mandate for airline passengers

Just the News, March 15, 2022

"Since March 2020, unelected bureaucrats have incessantly declared that we should 'follow the science,'" Paul said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced the resolution that received bipartisan support with a 57 to 40 vote.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was the only Republican to vote against the measure.
Eight Democratic senators voted in support of the resolution: Michael Bennet, Jacky Rosen, Catherine Cortez-Masto, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema and Jon Tester.
The resolution, which was first introduced in February, expresses disapproval of the CDC's mask mandate.
The resolution still faces significant challenges to become law. It did not receive enough votes to override the veto that President Joe Biden has threatened to do. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., may not even allow the House to vote on the measure.
"Today, the Senate said enough is enough, and sent a message to unelected government bureaucrats to stop the anti-science, nanny state requirement of travel mask mandates," Sen. Paul wrote in a press release after the vote.
"Since March 2020, unelected bureaucrats have incessantly declared that we should 'follow the science.' But the same bureaucrats continue to defy science by imposing an ineffective and restrictive mask mandate for individuals traveling on public transit and airplanes," the senator, who is also a doctor, wrote.

Action item: Please contact your Congress person and let them know how you feel about this. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to allow the House to vote on the measure and House members need to step up to the plate now.

Republicans in Congress file suit to end mask mandate for air travel

Idaho Capital Sun By: Jacob Fischler, March 15, 2022

Seventeen Republican members of Congress have sued the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seeking an end to the federal rule requiring passengers on commercial flights and in airports to wear masks.
The mandate illegally restricts the lawmakers’ freedom and is not backed by legal authority, they said in the suit filed Monday. They asked the court to step in to lift the rule.
The CDC extended the air travel mandate last week to April 18. It had been set to expire March 18.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, both of Kentucky, are the first members listed on the suit, which they filed in federal court in that state. Fifteen other GOP House members joined.
They include: Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Andrew Clyde and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Bob Good of Virginia, Brian Mast and Bill Posey of Florida and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
The members complained in the suit that in the two years since public health measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus began, “Americans have been subject to an increasing amount of government overreach … This is a case seeking to remedy one such overreach.”
In a statement, Rosendale railed against “the fearmongering narrative of COVID-19.”
“The CDC has forced Americans to wear masks on commercial flights for two years without legal standing,” Rosendale said. “A mandate is not law, and Congress never passed legislation codifying the CDC’s mask wearing demands.”

Again, call or write your Congress person or Senator. We need these masks removed from airplanes and airports as soon as possible.

TSA’s just-extended mask mandate has never made any sense.

New York Post. By Jacob Sullum. March 15, 2022

The federal rule that requires air travelers to wear face masks, which the Transportation Security Administration first imposed more than a year ago, was scheduled to expire this Friday. But the TSA extended the requirement for at least another month, for reasons even harder to understand than the original rationale for the mask mandate.
That is saying a lot, because the scientific justification for the TSA’s rule has always been weak, given that the conditions on airplanes are not conducive to COVID-19 transmission. The ventilation systems on commercial aircraft, which mix outdoor air with air recycled through HEPA filters and limit airflow between rows, help explain why there were few outbreaks associated with commercial flights even before vaccines were available.
“The risk of contracting COVID-19 during air travel is low,” an October 2020 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted. “Despite substantial numbers of travelers, the number of suspected and confirmed cases of in-flight COVID-19 transmission between passengers around the world appears small.”

Who is Robert Malone

The Federal Mask Mandates Need to End Now.