The federal government eliminated them at the close of the national health emergency declared around COVID-19, citing high levels of vaccinations that made the need to slow the spread of the virus even less prudent. Many businesses followed suit, with voluntary masking requirements in most stores dissipating as more and more people received the vaccine.
But as some schools and medical facilities have begun reinstating them amid a surge of a new strain of COVID-19, Republican lawmakers want them to stay a thing of the past, launching bills aimed at restricting the federal government’s ability to impose similar mandates in the future.
Citing arguments that masks didn’t work to slow the spread of the virus during COVID—which most studies contest—Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance announced plans September 5 to introduce the Freedom to Breathe Act, which would permanently prevent the federal government from reimposing federal mask mandates in the United States.
“We tried mask mandates once in this country. They failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses, violated basic bodily freedom, and set our fellow citizens against one another,” said Vance in a news release announcing the legislation. “This legislation will ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commercial airline, and no public school can impose the misguided policies of the past. Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates—we’re going to hold them to their word.”
Then there’s Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential member of the House Republican Conference who has pledged not to vote in favor of any federal budget that included funding for any COVID-19 vaccine or mask mandates.
“That is over,” she told constituents at an August 31 town hall in Floyd County, Georgia. “Even Joe Biden said it was over.”
And in Texas, a new ban on COVID-19 restrictions requiring individuals to wear face masks in public spaces went into effect on September 1 amid a rash of public and private entities across the U.S. reinstated the policy due to a rise in new infections fueled by two new variants of the virus.
“Thanks to Governor Abbott and the hard work of the Texas Legislature, Texas has closed the door on COVID restrictions,” Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, told Newsweek at the time.
While Texas, a deep-red state with a Republican governor, was already unlikely to revive a mask mandate, it’s unclear whether a federal mask mandate is on the table at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees federal rulemaking around masking policies, told a Newsweek reporter last Thursday that it currently had no plan to revive COVID-era mask mandates.
There are also no plans to reimpose them in the federal budget, though some Republican lawmakers have remained hung up over COVID-19 vaccine mandates for servicemembers in the United States military.
It’s also unclear whether Vance’s bill will be successful. While the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress is narrowly divided, it still leans toward Democrats, while it is unclear whether the more moderate members of the Republican party would align with Vance on the effort.
[…]
Via https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-declare-war-mask-mandates-1824750
The Most Revolutionary Act 
Well, they can enact laws, shuffle some more papers around and all that jazz, however, I have long since declared a war on masks and Covid vaccines and boosters. I am NOT wearing masks and I am NOT taking ANY Covid vaccines or boosters, I don’t care what anyone says. As far as I am concerned, that ship has sailed. They can hype it up again until the cows go out and come back home and it will make no difference to me. The fat lady done sung and died on me being concerned over their mandates.
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i was advised by a health professional to wear a mask in public a couple of years before the scamdemic due to my compromised immune system. but i didnt because of another countervailing health concern. as a perpetual suspect, a black man, i didnt want to get shot by the police. now i dont wear one because i know that, despite what the ER nurse said, they dont work. today my pet peeve is seeing young healthy people walking around in public wearing masks. even today! would you young mfs please do a minimum amount of research and not simply follow the official covid propaganda! sheesh! youre not at risk. and even if you were the damn masks aint gone help.
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Nomad, I even did my own study on masks. When my cousin and I were looking to move to a different state that had an affordable housing option that I had found, we boarded a train and stayed at Bally’s hotel in Atlantic City. The entire trip, I was masked up from the time I left my front door, all the way on the train to New Jersey, all throughout my stay at Bally’s and on the train the entire journey back to Virginia and yet, I came down with Covid, while my cousin who did NOT wear a mask the entire time, did NOT come down with Covid despite him being diabetic, having clogged arteries, had already had one heart attack and was needing surgery on his heart and some mo shit! Now, let Fauci explain THAT shit to me! I wish the hell he would!!! Hence why I am NEVER wearing a mask again, so they can just miss me with that bullshit of theirs about mask wearing and underlying health conditions, yada, yada, yada.
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Nomad, this compulsive mask-wearing reminds me of cult behavior, nomad. I’m aware that parents who rescue their kids from cults often send them to official deprogrammers to help them resume normal lives again.
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My feelings exactly, Shelby.
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Unvaxxed Haiti Recorded 0% Covid Deaths
https://newsaddicts.com/unvaxxed-haiti-recorded-0-covid-deaths/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
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Great link, Rainbow. Thanks.
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Now the U.S. Congress can move on to the #1 most important issue: Identifying, arresting, prosecuting and punishing the individuals criminally responsible for the mRNA vaccines (injections, inoculations, bioweapons) premeditated mass murder of an estimated (Dr. Peter McCullough) 500,000-600,000 innocent Americans…
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I could be wrong, Jerry, but I’m skeptical the Republicans will go that far (I suspect a number of them are invested in Big Pharma or beholden to them for campaign donations).
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What astounds me is that this is even an issue requiring federal lawmakers’ intervention. I believe the US Constitution originally deferred issues not covered therein to the states, but even state policies regarding masks seem a breach of individual rights.
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Except for specific rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution makes no mention of “individual rights.” This has been pretty much left up to the courts to interpret.
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