Biden: Oh, never mind about that national mask mandate too.
The primaries are behind us and we’re well into the season of candidates attempting to shove everything they said up until the conventions down the memory hole and replace those statements with new positions more salable to voters in swing states. Uncle Joe has been on a roll in this department lately, dragging Kamala Harris with him on this field trip into revisionist history. The latest example came to us this week in the form of a “reconsideration” of Biden’s previous promise to institute a national face mask mandate if elected. (As long as “the science” warranted it, of course.)
So is Sleepy Joe Biden still preparing to send out the brute squad and make sure every American is wearing a mask next year? Perish the thought! He never really intended any such thing because there are obvious “constitutional questions” about such a dictate. (NY Post)
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden walked back his own call for a national mask mandate, saying he wouldn’t issue any binding orders because he believes it would be unconstitutional.
The former vice president was questioned by AZFamily’s “Politics Unplugged” Sunday about his repeated pledges to use the powers of the presidency to force Americans to wear masks when he got candid about the efficacy of a mandate.
Asked to respond to the governors who had appreciated President Trump’s more targeted coronavirus approach, which gave more authority to the states, Biden said, “Well, I hope you could trust the governors.
“But here’s the deal, the federal government — there’s a constitutional issue whether federal government could issue such a mandate. I don’t think constitutionally they could, so I wouldn’t issue a mandate.”
So what’s the new plan? Biden will simply “plead” with people to wear a mask and set an example by doing so himself. Sounds good, right? But help us out here for a moment, Joe. Was there some amendment to the Constitution passed since August 13th and we just missed it? If it’s constitutionally problematic now, why wasn’t it then?
This particular flip flop becomes even more amusing when you look at the timeline. As I just mentioned, it was all of 27 days ago when the mandate was good to go. But he’d been promising this (and more) long before that. Speaking to Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA in June, Biden declared that he would sign an executive order mandating the wearing of masks. Apparently the old, pre-September Constitution didn’t have any glitches preventing such an order back then either.
Before the end of August, Kamala Harris was dragged in front of a microphone and forced to try to find some middle ground on the mask mandate question. Yes, there would be a mandate, she said. But nobody was going to be punished if they didn’t comply. So it was a mandate with no enforcement mechanism for all intents and purposes. But still constitutionally okay, apparently. I mean, the woman served as Attorney General in our most populous state. She should know if anyone would, right?
But now Uncle Joe has not only flip-flopped on the subject but inserted a disclaimer saying that the act would be unconstitutional. And now Kamala Harris is going to have switch out from her formal heels into some comfortable gym shoes and do yet another flip-flop to follow Biden into this strange new territory.
Don’t fret for Harris, though. She’s growing used to this gymnastics routine by now. You’ll recall that she was quite firm during the primary when it came to ending fracking and most other oil drilling in the country. But once Joe Biden abandoned that position entirely, Harris was forced to stand in the klieg lights and declare that a fracking ban was most assuredly off the table. Particularly for voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, if you get my drift.
Welcome to general election mode. Everything Biden and Harris said on the campaign trail and during the debates is null and void now. Today they’ll say whatever the polls dictate. And sadly, most of the MSM will enable them in perpetuating this illusion as if the primary had never happened. But that should leave everyone with a nagging question in the back of their minds. What if Biden and Harris win the election and then turn around and institute a face mask mandate and a fracking ban after all? Will they just point to their earlier statements during the primaries and pretend the general election never happened?