 are you asking Eric to record as well? I wasn't going to. Okay, I think town meeting TV typically does. Yes. Okay. Okay. You're so high-level. Here. Hi, Nathan, how are you tonight? I am good, how are you? Better? What do you mean? What's the matter with you? No, me? Yeah, I thought you said you were better. Oh, no. No, I'm good, Sandy. Okay, great. Good. He's on the Tax Appeal Commission. This man is a very, in Burlington, which covers all public meetings and they record them and it's shown on their website. And we will send out a link when we get that link. Right, Jenna? For sure. And all of those past links can be found on Vicki's website, which is v-i-c-i-i.org. Great, thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Hi, Jane, how are you, Jane? I'm pretty well, thanks, Sandy, and you. Well, I'm here, like, that's always good, isn't it? That we're all still here, we're all still on the planet. Yeah. All right, Jenna, where are you gone now? For sure, I'm here and I just let one more person in so folks may trickle in, but I think you should go right ahead. All right, thank you. And you are recording now and we will make the announcement again that we are now recording and that this will be shown later on CCTV, okay? All right, so welcome everybody to this very important presentation. We are presenting this kind of, a little bit of a debate tonight, I hope, on behalf of the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement, I might mention. That was the original name of Burlington College where I taught for a very long time. And we are also being presented by a new project that I'm hoping to begin and extend and that is called the People's Law School. And I wanna do that here and discuss important legal issues, also political issues, also all kinds of issues, but tonight we are concentrating on a legal issue and we are presenting that on behalf of the People's Law School and the Vermont International Community and Institute of Community and International Involvement. And that institution is dedicated to bringing some kind of critical thinking and hopefully we will bring up such topics that cause everybody to critically think and to give information about important issues which are being debated in our society. And in that regard tonight, we are going to talk a little bit about vaccine mandates. The reason that I think that this is extremely timely is of course we've been discussing vaccine mandates for a long time in response to COVID which is sweeping the planet still. This COVID or coronavirus. And in that regard, the strategy particularly the European nations and the United States has been to vaccinate and to in cases where there are questions about vaccination to also to issue at times vaccine mandates. It's not the first time in history that that has happened. And that's why we are discussing this issue tonight. There's a second reason to discuss it tonight because our U.S. Supreme Court is discussing the same issue right now even as we speak because our president, President Joseph Biden has issued, he wants to issue vaccine mandates and do that on a federal level and extend those mandates to all employers with over a hundred employees. There have been challenges to that mandate. And right now the Supreme Court of the United States is deciding whether or not the president has exceeded his powers or whether he has the authority given the emergency situation that we are in to issue on a federal level a vaccine mandate and say to all businesses with over a hundred employees that they have to carry out vaccine mandates. So they're basing a lot of their arguments in the courts on a case in 1904 that was decided by the United States Supreme Court in a case called Jacobson versus Massachusetts. That was decided in 1904 when another pandemic was sweeping the planet and that was a smallpox vaccine situation and the pandemic in the late 19th and early 20th century. All of you who remember going to school remember getting that smallpox vaccine. That case was decided that the state had the authority to pass vaccine mandates back in 1904. The decision that in the U.S. Supreme Court will depend on that being set as a precedent when they decide pretty soon I hope that the president of the United States either does or does not have the authority to issue a vaccine mandate against all employers with over a hundred employees. There's also a section that says of his mandates that says that he can issue those mandates to all healthcare workers. That's correct, Nathan, isn't it? Yes. Okay, Nathan. All right, I wanna present, okay, so this is an argument. I would like to mention that I believe that we should try as much as possible to make this a legal argument because there have been so many other kinds of arguments that have not really been solved and this one is about to be solved. In other words, there have been arguments over the whole course of this pandemic about statistics, figures, hospitalizations, efficacy of the vaccines. What I want to concentrate tonight on the legality of the president and whether or not he has the singular authority to issue a vaccine mandate to all employees or as rather and also help for healthcare workers. With us tonight to present the case for Massachusetts versus Jacobson, at least to explain it, is Nathan Verage who here at ALV, we've had the great gratitude to Nathan because he has now come here, joined us and is working on very important cases usually involving immigration. He's working with our other expert on immigration who I hope that I see on this Zoom, Michelle Janes and they are helping so many people. Wow, that's a little good. I don't know what that is. But anyway, Michelle is here tonight. Nathan is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. Is that correct? Not quite that prestigious, a University of Illinois at Chicago. Okay, but in Chicago, right? Yeah, yep. Okay, and he is a graduate, he's a juror's doctor. He graduated from that law school. He is now studying for the bar. He will take the bar in February and with all of his brains, I'm certain he's going to pass that bar and join us here dealing with lots of immigration cases. He is going to talk a little bit about the legality and what the court decided and what the arguments were in that case of Massachusetts versus Jacobson. So, okay, take it away, Nathan. Awesome, thanks, Andy, for the intro. I do wanna thank everyone for being here and for anybody who will listen to this on the station and also just to reiterate Sandy's point is that I'm really gonna stick to just the legal arguments here without my opinion. But when we do open the floor to discussion, I wanna encourage anybody and everybody to speak their mind. There's no judgment, say what you wanna say, that's fine. But with that, I am going to screen share. Whoever the host has to enable me to share a screen. Is that you, Sandy? No, I'm not. I told you, I don't know how to do that. I think Jenna does, but we should ask her. I do, and I've just done it, Nathan. You should have it now. Perfect, thank you. Oh, mm-mm, it's gone. Okay, all right, it's kind of difficult to read, but okay, there you go, great. Oh, wait, one second. Okay, sorry, this is it somehow started from the back. Okay, so as Sandy said, this is Jacobson versus Massachusetts, early 1900s case. So facts of the case, basically what had happened was, can everybody hear me okay? Yeah, yeah. Okay, awesome. So Massachusetts law gave cities the ability to impose mandatory vaccine requirements on its residents. This was during, as Sandy mentioned, during the smallpox epidemic. So the city of Cambridge in Massachusetts went ahead and enacted a mandatory vaccine requirement for adults. And Mr. Jacobson did not want to get the vaccine because as a child, he had experienced an adverse reaction and fearing that he would become ill again. He did not want to get this vaccine. In response to that, he was criminally charged and fined $5 and was imprisoned. And he would stay in prison until he would pay that fine, which he ultimately did. I just wrote the statutes here. You don't have to read it. I'm not going to read it. This was basically directly from the city of Cambridge and the state. So the state here, you could see that the state gave the authority to each city to enact that if they wish and which they did. So you could read that later. So some of the focus questions and Sandy again already alluded to it. Number one, for this case specifically, Jacobson versus Massachusetts is if states can allow cities, states can allow cities to impose mandatory vaccination requirements on the residents of the state during a pandemic. And then the second question, which would be relevant for this executive power or authority is whether the president has that authority or power to impose the mandatory vaccination requirements for employers. So ultimately the conclusion of Jacobson and we've seen this today in some challenges is that the Supreme Court held that states can require its residents to get the vaccines during an epidemic or pandemic, which is under its police powers. Those of you that don't know, police powers generally come from the 10th amendment of the constitution, which allows states to enact certain laws or regulations that would protect the health and safety of the public. And the court found that persons, this is just a quote directly, persons and property can be restrained in order to secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state that's cited from the case who was citing an earlier case precedent. And then some of the analysis here is that the court found that a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease, which threatens the safety of its members. And also again, this is just talking about states. This has nothing to do with federal, it's not answered in this case at all, it's just referring to state authority. And then secondly, the legislature has the right to pass laws, which according to the common belief of the people are adapted to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. And then I put a little quote here that I thought was important. It says the justice here wrote that, while we do not decide and cannot decide that vaccination is a preventative measure for the smallpox, we take judicial notice of the fact that this is a common belief of the people of the state. So this interpretation here is, the justice wasn't necessarily going by the exact numbers or anything like that or even concrete evidence. It was just whether the commonality of people agreed that that could be a preventative measure for the disease. And then focus questions again. So now we'll go to number two, is if the president has the power authority to impose mandatory vaccination requirements for employers. So where the president, President Biden is citing this authority comes from OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This is a government agency that was created by Congress in 1970 to ensure safe and helpful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, outreach, education and assistance within congressional authority to create these government agencies and delegate some authority to them to carry out various things. So OSHA, what OSHA today had issued, this was back in November, they issued an emergency temporary standard ETS to minimize, this is directly from their page to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the workplace. The ETS establishes binding requirements to protect unvaccinated employees of large employers, a hundred or more employees from the risk of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace. And then who will be affected, Sandy already alluded to this, private employers with a hundred or more employees firm or corporate-wide. So this applies to both private and public employers. Okay, and where the authority is derived from is section 6C of the OSHA Act. And then further section 6C1, so this is one of the provisions of the Act defines two requirements in order for an ETS to be issued by OSHA. So the agency has to show both of these things. Number one, employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards. And number two, must show that the emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger. Bring this up now, it'll be, I'm also showing both sides, so I'm showing the opposing arguments. So it'll be important, number two. And then I put here that grave danger is not defined in statute or regulation. So that just means that it's really up for interpretation in the courts when they're deciding some of these cases. And I'm emitting somebody to the, okay. I think it kind of skipped over a slide, but anyway, some of the counter arguments is that, so these are, so what I have set up to now is the legal argument that President Biden has the authority to have this mandate acting through OSHA to enforce this. So some of the counter arguments to that is that states, not the federal government, are tasked with protecting public health within its states. That's earlier kind of what I mentioned about police powers. Number two, the mandate infringes on Americans' individuals' rights and oversteps the reach of the federal government's powers. This is also, Jacobson was arguing that, and I think I cut it off there on the bottom, is that his personal liberties were being infringed upon. And then attorney Ben Flowers, who is arguing in front of the Supreme Court actually, he argues that COVID-19 is not for most employees an occupational danger that OSHA may regulate and does not present a grave danger for many employees subject to that mandate. So that Ben Flowers is arguing that OSHA is not meeting the second prong of that test and thus cannot issue this emergency temporary order for the vaccines. And then this is another part of it is that OSHA feels to demonstrate that an emergency standard is necessary to protect workers. So that's the causation that's the link directly is that you have to show that there's a grave danger and then the measure. So in this case, the vaccines is necessary to prevent that danger. And this I just put, I won't read it off. This is just President Biden's press release regarding it. It's pretty much what OSHA already said. And the second part is what Sandy was saying in the beginning is that anyone that receives funding for Medicare and Medicaid services, the mandate would be effective in that regard as well. So this would affect healthcare workers directly and the facilities participating in those programs. That's just my contact information. You can see it on the slide later. Just some, I hopefully this PowerPoint will be available so that you guys can see the references that I used. There's a lot out there and now it's open for discussion. Okay, before we do that, before we open it to the public, I wanted to ask Nathan a couple of questions that clarify. I'm not, I'm going to avoid arguing and I'm gonna lead that up to the audience. Okay, so this was a case where there was a smallpox epidemic. Is that your answer? Can I interrupt for one second? Sure, who's that, Jenna? Yeah, it is. Nathan, would you stop sharing screens for the recording so that we can view the speaker? Thank you. No problem. Okay, so Jacob, I mean, so Nathan, as I understand it then, there was a smallpox epidemic going on in the early 20th century, right? Correct, yes. And this had been defined as an epidemic throughout the world, not just in the United States, right? Right. Is my understanding also that there, that this epidemic had been going on for some years? Yes, it was going on for, I believe it was a while. When they were talking about vaccines specifically, I want to say it was close to 100 or so years. It was a long time. But in my research, it does say that it had been going on for 100 years and that vaccines had been used for that period of time too, at least with a certain degree of success, right? Correct. So, but this in, this was a case involving Massachusetts. And Mr. Jacobson, actually, I believe it was an immigrant, a Swedish immigrant who had had bad results from vaccines. So he therefore declined to take this specific vaccine. Is that your understanding? Yes. And then the state, the U.S. Supreme Court said that the state of Massachusetts could mandate that he take this vaccination. Is that also correct? Yeah, for residents, yes. I don't think the address. Right. So it was the state there for that was the state of Massachusetts who said that vaccines could be mandated for the residents of Massachusetts. Correct. The last thing I wanted, and so he said, no, I don't want to do it. So he felt a foul then of a law of Massachusetts and the state of Massachusetts that he had to do it or an ordinance. Yeah, yeah. So what was the penalty? Do you remember that? Was he, was he forced to do the vaccination or what? No, so he was fined $5, which would equivalently be about $150. And until he paid that fine, he was imprisoned. So he therefore never did get vaccinated. Is that true? I didn't look into it, but I would assume I'm not aware that he was vaccinated. He was punished, however, by a criminal law and a fine for not doing it, right? Correct. Okay. All right. So those are my questions just to clear up what happened. And in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Maryland ruled that the vaccination did not violate the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment requires equal protection of the law of all citizens of the United States. He also decided that the police power, meaning the cops and health officers, and can, can, can restrain your liberty and can mandate that you get a vaccination. That was the essential holding. If it was decided that there was an emergency and that the vaccinations could help protect against transmission in particular, that the state had the authority to issue a vaccine mandate, even though an individual might say, I don't want it. Okay. Is that the way you, you agree with that analysis? Yeah. All right. So anybody have, so why don't we open it up now to anybody else who has anything to discuss, to say, or give us your opinion. Were they right? And does it pertain to today? Hello. Yeah. Hi, Barry. Hi. Some reason my screen just changed and I don't, okay. The first thing to remember is that the federal government does not have police power other than for matters that are specifically listed in the constitution, like trees and within the military, interstate commerce now, et cetera. And that's the police power to protect the health and safety of the state. And that's why it was basically a Massachusetts case that went to Supreme court over a small, the smallpox vaccine. Another thing to remember is the court, the current court, the Supreme court on the current decision will base its decision on the facts as they were on the day that the, the complaint was filed, which I imagine was during the, the Delta surge. And while it may have been reasonable during the Delta surge under today's presumed facts, we don't know for sure yet, but on the facts as they're emerging from the crown, it doesn't, you know, the, the justification seems to have vanished, but the court will not be deciding under on the crown, it will be on the day, you know, what, whether the decision was valid on the day it was issued. Then the other issue of course is whether OSHA has the authority to impose those kinds of mandates. And I don't know anybody that really thinks that they do. Well, certainly there seems to be a lot of discussion about that. Okay. Let me ask if there are other thoughts on the, I would, I would wonder about OSHA. You remember that OSHA is a government and bureaucracy essentially that decides how to keep workplaces safe. So the argument from our president is that OSHA in order to keep workplaces safe are demanding that people get vaccinated so they don't transmit that to their fellow employees. The question is, does OSHA have that authority? Does President Biden have that authority to order of bureaucracy to do that? I think those are the key questions that are facing the U.S. Supreme Court right now as we speak. And there's a third question that I think is more maybe more intellectually distant in a way. The whole discussion revolves around what Justice Harlan said. Does a state in any situation have the right to abrogate individual liberty in order to protect the public good? Does it? Okay. Let me just give you an example. Individual liberties at this point in our history, who decides about medical care in this country? Who decides what treatment or shots to take under the Constitution as it is right now? Who do you think? In general, who would you imagine has that decision-making power? I would say the patient in consultation with their medical provider. Right, right. That is the usual situation. And that situation actually is confirmed by Roe v. Wade, actually. In Roe v. Wade, it was decided that individual women in their own conscience, because women are moral agents, because women are citizens under the 14th amendment, that they have the right to make their own medical decisions free of the interference of the government. And that's under Roe, which is also, of course, going to be questioned in this term, I would guess. Okay. But because of Jacobson and probably other cases, that idea has been challenged because that this case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts states that individuals, liberties can be constrained basically in an emergency in order to protect the public safety and health. That's a real key issue that I think underlies all of these debates. The other issue that underlies it is does the president on a federal level have that right to decide for the states in a way that they must do this? So let's start with this idea of individual liberties versus the collective. What do you guys, what's on people's mind? Anything? No. In other words, does the Constitution go away in an emergency? No? Nobody has it. Is there anyone in practice? What? In theory, they do not. In practice, they always do. Yeah. Okay. Anybody else? Anybody else have any questions or thoughts about this whole issue? Do you think that the government in other words can mandate vaccines? Or should? Should it at this moment? I do want to say so. I think there would obviously there, undisputably there would be an issue if President Biden tried to impose a maximum requirement across the board saying, Hey, everybody in the United States needs to be vaccinated. That would undisputably be an unauthorized use of power. I think the distinguishing, and I'm not saying my personal opinion, I think the distinguishing factor here is, and I think you're alluding to commandeering is forcing a state or trying to force a state to pass a certain regulation and such. But in this regard, I think, I mean, I guess I don't, I wouldn't see commandeering as a thing here because he's, President Biden is working through OSHA, I'm not saying whether he has that authority, but working through OSHA to pass this federal mandate for employees and such. So I don't, I don't see that it directly relates to the states. I don't, you think it does relate to the states or what, what do you mean? No, I'm saying that at least the OSHA's mandate does not because it's imposed. It's not specifically imposed on states. It's not written in its mandate. Hey, Alabama needs to pass this. It just covers people in the US as a whole as a collective issue. So I think it does relate to the state. Rather than individual states and individual state residents. Okay. I noticed Justin Snow, who's an attorney from Florida. What do you think you're the Roe expert? Justine. I actually have a question, Sandy. I was going to ask if this is validated through a Supreme Court opinion. Do you think that that will have an impact on. The state? Yes. Okay. That's my belief as well. So that's my concern with. Yeah. Well, I'd say that it would say that. Let me talk a little bit more about that. Justine, by the way, let me talk a little bit about first about justine. She is an attorney of public defender in Florida, who I had the privilege of having in my classes at Burlington college before she became an attorney when she. I wasn't undergraduate. She went on to become an attorney. She's a public defender in Florida right now. And she will be presenting on Roe later in the. This. I guess in the spring, right? I think we've decided. Okay. So justine. I think framed her question. If the court goes in the direction that the government does have this authority to mandate vaccines. How will this affect. The arguments in Roe be weighed. And what years? Why don't you try to answer that? Justine. Right. And so my question kind of goes into my concerns stems from the fact. Of, you know, the slippery slope argument. If. You know, the federal government is allowed to make decisions. In our healthcare in this area of life. What is to kind of stop that slippery slope from allowing them to make decisions. And I think it's important to demand a, you know, in our state, our legislator just filed a 15 week abortion ban. That our governor considers very reasonable. Along with the Texas ban that just went through the six week ban. So. If, you know, women's rights, they're not allowed to make decisions. But then on the other side, we're saying, yes, you can tell everybody to get a vaccine. I just don't see how those coincide and don't relate to each other. If one is allowed and off the other, I feel that they'll run into each other. Right. I've, I've thought about that too. I'll understand what we're talking about in case people are not familiar with the arguments in Roe be weighed. We're talking about whether or not people had the right to an abortion. The argument was under the 14th amendment, which is mentioned of course in these briefs in the 14th amendment, the 14th amendment says that all persons. Born in the United States. Our citizens of the United States and are entitled therefore to the equal protection of our laws. Now, how does this relate to women and abortion? And in fact, all citizens. That means that it is in the purview of a citizen. Under law to have the rights to make medical decisions in their own individual judgment in consultation with their doctors. So what Justine is saying, if the, if the court listens to the, you know, in the, in there's going to be a debate about the abortion. It'll be the same debate. In this argument about vaccine mandates. Does a person have the right. To refuse a vaccine. Based on their own individual circumstances. Or can the, can the United States government say, this is such a threat to the public safety. That you have to be vaccinated. Those are those are the two sides. Can in other words, the government force you into a medical decision that you don't want to do. And then here's just my other point. And this is not related necessarily to the legal argument, but more of the impact it would have if it does go through. So obviously, you know, I've talked before I'm very pro criminal justice reform. And so if somebody, if this is allowed. And there are penalties associated with it. So, you know, obviously in criminal defense, I see penalties assessed and, you know, it's either going to be a fine or jail, depending on what they decide the penalty is for violating that mandate. And so are we going to take our resources and. We're going to take our resources and we're going to take our resources and we're going to criminalize people and either put them in jail or assess the fine. And then if they don't have a fine, they have a lien on them. They lose the license, whatever the penalties typically are when you violate the law. And so that's obviously not illegal arguments in front of the Supreme court, but that's more of an impact argument and kind of my question on how that will impact society as a whole. Does anybody else have a thought about that? Yeah. Very. Yeah. Yeah. So, abortion laws were decided on. You know, when, when, essentially, when does the fetus have rights independent of the mother? There's no, there's no, there's no national emergency involved in that. Unless the states and passing abortion laws. Unless the states and passing abortion laws, you know, use the language of the anti-choice folks. And that's not the case. The law of the claims law. And so I think that's a negative. Or what's the word for trying to wipe out a population, um, Genocide, Genocide. Right. That this is a genocide against. Unborn babies. Right. But you know, it's not a. Well, we have. On the. Vaccine issue is a health emergency. where clearly there really is no health emergency unless it's decided for purely political reasons and upheld for purely political reasons that abortion, the number of abortions constitute an emergency in a particular state. But another point I want to make is the courts are very reluctant to substitute the state's judgment with its own. Really? Yeah, I'm not certain of that. I've seen lots of cases, you know, where they vary on vaccine issues, even though it's clear to many of us that the emergency is definitely tamped down if not over. If a legislature and a governor in passing emergency orders determine that an emergency exists, it'll be difficult to get the court to go against that unless it's shown that there was a hidden motive as the second circuit found in the Vermont Yankee decision where the federal law precluded the states from determining issues for nuclear power that involved public safety. And the Vermont legislature passed the law based on some economic issues. I don't remember exactly what it was, but there was evidence presented by Vermont Yankee that that was not the real legislative motive, that they really just wanted to shut it down because they felt it was unsafe. And that's what the second circuit went along with. So that was a case where false motives would be used to override a state finding effect. Yeah, well, but in the abortion case, there are plenty of people that is the sort of the argument from the anti-choice argument is that it is the healthcare crisis for fetuses. Under the principles of law, however, a fetus is not a person yet because a fetus is not born. So it's under the 14th amendment. And this will be decided on whether or not there's an emergency, whether the vaccines can prevent transmission, whether in other words the vaccine can actually solve the problem of transmission and can protect public safety, and whether an individual's liberty can be evaporated because of the overriding concern of public safety and health. You know, it'll be the same thing. So I think Justine has a point that if one happens, the court's going to be put in a really hard political position because we've heard anyway, don't know if it's true really yet, that the conservatives on the court favor the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But the conservatives on this court seem to be questioning vaccine mandates. The liberals on the court favor a woman's right to choose, but they also favor vaccine mandates. So it's a really curious contradiction as, and I was so surprised the other day that Justice Sotomayor revealed her prejudice. Do you know what I'm talking about? Because she way overestimated the amount of children that are getting Omicron, I guess. She said hundreds of thousands, didn't she? Did you hear that, Justine? In public, she said it at a press release, to justify what I think is her position going to be that vaccine mandates are fine because there's such an emergency. On the other hand, she has said that she's totally pro-choice. So I do think there's a direct threat. And the underlying argument is going to be whether the court can override individual liberties in order to guarantee public safety. I think, what do you think, Justine? Can I just say, sorry. No, that's fine. I just wanted to give some people in the chat because I don't know if they're being recorded. Some people are talking about, which we were kind of talking about, I think, Barry was correct me if I'm wrong, alluding to a little bit. But there are people that agree with and state that the difference, and again, this is kind of what we already discussed, is that abortion doesn't necessarily affect society as a whole, as far as the pandemic would with contracting coronavirus, whether it's deadly today or not. I think the distinguishing point, as people say, and that I could see as well, is that this transmission of a deadly or maybe not deadly now, but severe illness or disease affects everybody as a whole. And when you talk about the equal protection and you're singling out a specific group, and Jacobson actually even discussed this when he knocks down Jacobson's argument about the equal protection is that this affects society as a whole, in a sense. And so I can see and I'm 100% women's rights, pro-women's rights, so I do and I do hope that courts would be able to distinguish if this were to happen. I have some hope that courts would be able to distinguish and still allow women those rights. That's a good hope, but that's what it is. It's merely a hope, Nathan. Is there anybody else in the chat? On the other hand, it's merely up to you. Very, very. There are people in the chat, I think. Aren't there, Nathan? Is that it? No, that's it. Okay. Sandy, I wonder if it's an important distinction. This is Jenna speaking, by the way, that the mandate, and maybe I misunderstand it, is for employers of companies of a standard size or a particular size. And it's not kind of a blanket mandate for every individual in the country. And then my second question is how does it, if at all, impact waivers? Will folks within employers of those numbers still be able to access medical waivers? Because, and I would think that those two distinctions would kind of protect row from coming under the same kind of vulnerability if it does come to that, that folks are alluding to right now. That's a great question. I have another question. I don't know kind of the deter, I don't know exactly what will happen. I do know there's another question. Does the government have the authority to mandate business to do anything? These are private businesses. You know, does the government in general have the right to tell private businesses what they have to do? That's a whole other question. They certainly have taken the position often the government and the capitalist essentially that the government doesn't have the right to tell them what to do because they are private individuals, private enterprise, and the government should just butt out. That's a whole other question. In regard to, so I don't really know what the nature of your question is. The second part of it though as I understand it, Jenna, is will there be exemptions? Is that how I understand what you're saying? Yeah, and I think that you were kind of getting right to my point is isn't this mandate more about having the authority to mandate employers because it's not a blanket mandate for each individual citizen. I think you are right. It's going to affect though enormous, enormous amounts of people and that's what they're arguing. Jane has her hand up and could I just address one other thing before we let Jane in and that is about these exemptions. There have always been two exemptions to any of these mandates religious and medical exemptions. The government is taking the position though that neither really count that much anymore. They are saying pretty blanketly that you're going to have to stand on your head and really perform enormous proof that you have a religious right to a religious exemption or a medical exemption. They're kind of evaporating that. Now that really disturbs me a lot because I totally believe in religious liberty. I'm not religious. I don't belong to a church. I used to. I don't anymore. But I really value a person's freedom of conscience, which is really basically how they believe and that includes religious stuff. But the government seems very anxious not to give exemptions. I mean the government mandated recently that if you're in the military services, you have to get a vaccination. In Texas, 40% of the National Guard won't do it. So what's going to happen to that in that case is and they've applied for those kinds of exemptions, but it's going to happen in Texas will be interesting. Will they be kicked out of the military? See, now that's a different question too because the punishment in our situation is not to go to jail as Justine thought or to be criminalized. As the Massachusetts case said, it is to be kicked out of your employment. That is the penalty. So it's kind of different in that regard too. If an employee, if somebody who's an employee says I'm not doing it, they lose their job. That's what happens. Not they don't go to jail. They lose, but they lose their job. Okay, so Jane had a question. Yeah, um, if our children required to be vaccinated against, against the, I guess, the theory of tetanus and small, I mean, and smallpox or yes, so if children can then I then that then that presents a case for having adults be required to put, since these two, because these, because the certainty of illness of other, of, of people getting sick is very, if nobody, if nobody got vaccinated is, is practically, I mean would, is, is, is, is certain because, because Omicron is so easily, is so, is so easily transmitted. It provides and, and, and vaccinations protect against, if you do get it, some severity and protects the people, forget, forget, protect people who are who are vulnerable. Can I just answer that? There is a crucial difference that we didn't mention. And this is crucial. And it's being, it's being litigated in the International Criminal Court now, even as we speak. These vaccinations that were about COVID have not been approved yet, nor have they been tested for a long time. So what, what many people would argue is that a mandate is really a mandate that people, adults primarily, be part of a medical test. That's the opposing argument. That was not true in 1904. Let me tell you a little bit more though about that. In 1904, however, there wasn't maybe an FDA, a federal drug approval system or administration. That was the beginning of the idea in this country of public health in the first place. However, the smallpox vaccines had been around for at least a hundred years and had been used. So there at least had, they had been tested, but I don't believe they were approved either, but they had been in use for a long time. Now, when you're talking about children, what do you think, Jane? Do you think that that, and it is pretty much going to be mandated for children? I got a case today of children over five, they're going to be required to be vaccinated in order to take part in their school sports. So, I mean, those vaccine mandates are going to be applied to children in school. That's a whole different argument. I mean, I'm asking you guys, I guess, what you think. But the problem is that at least two of these vaccines, the Johnson and Johnson and the Moderna, have not received approval from the FDA have. And it's questionable about the Pfizer, but that seems a little bit more approved than the other two. But the question with children is very, very important, I think. Yeah, Barry? The Pfizer vaccine was approved by the FDA on August 23rd at the U.S. administration site. That's the headline. I know, but that's, it's an odd thing. I'm not going to get into the Pfizer situation, but it's a little bit strange. But all of the other two have not been approved. They have been approved for emergency use. So there's that key difference between Jacobson and also present day. I don't know if it makes a big difference in the long run, but it might to a parent, it might. And then does a parent have the right to say, I don't want my kid vaccinated? They could prior to this, but do they have that right now? Or should they have that right? Should they have that right? Can I answer that question really quick? Sure. Sure. Well, I don't know if it answers your question. And I also really quickly, I know we're running out of time, but I really quickly wanted to answer somebody else's question about kind of like waivers and stuff. There are, and Sandy seems like has done research on like maybe the difficulty of getting that. I do want to say there are exemptions. So like, for an example, employees working from home, obviously wouldn't be needed to be vaccinated. Employees who work outdoors, even if it's over a hundred, won't need to be vaccinated. And basically any employee who doesn't report to work or has any interaction with anybody. But secondly, and this is also in the chat, somebody had asked about whether what the law is about children having other vaccines in school. So not necessarily just singling out the COVID-19 vaccine, but other vaccines. And I, and I've heard this argument around too, is that if we have those requirements, and of course there are some people for religious things like that who not want to get it or can't get it, depending on their cultures and things like that. But for a majority of people who have those vaccines, it's hard for people to distinguish any difference when. Yeah, but there is that difference. Those vaccines that you have to have to go to school have been approved and tested. These have not. Remember warp speed. We all remember that. That warp speed program by the former President Trump got out these vaccines in record time. And then everybody got them, but they had not been tested very much, nor had they been approved. That's a key difference. I can't speak with any certainty. This is Jenna speaking again in regards to the COVID vaccine. But in Vermont, you can still obtain a medical or religious exemption. It wasn't that long ago that you could also obtain a philosophical objection. And I in fact went to the stay house and argued that they should not dismiss that, that they should retain it. Because, well, in my mind was the difference between philosophical and religious. And why do I have to claim a particular church to qualify for that type of objection? But you can do that in Vermont. It's not that difficult. And I believe that you still can do that for COVID as well. I agree with you totally Jenna, but it is not easy anymore. And I think you're right. They remove the philosophical exemption. So what would you do if you were a person like me who doesn't have a religion and has no plan to get one anytime soon? I guess I'd have to prove that I was baptized in the Catholic Church. I don't really know. Yeah, but you're not practical. Maybe you are. I'm not going to ask you such a private question. But if you, I was two, I was a Roman Catholic all my life. I'm no longer one. Mainly on the issue that we talked about on Roe v. Wade, the Catholic Church, you know, is pretty conservative about women's rights. And so I left the church over that. But so what, what would I do? In other words, the religious exemption, you have to prove it. Just like you have to prove conscientious objection to war, correct? But that's allowed. But this vaccine mandate is very tough on granting exemptions. Did you have a question, Eric? Yes, I, I mean, a question and a comment at the same time. How can the Supreme Court make a sound decision when the science itself is uncertain? You know, vaccinated people continue to spread, you know, the virus, you know, and then the Washington, I mean, the Wall Street Journal was had an interesting article on, you know, the confusion that was raining at the Supreme Court. So Tomayo was saying that, you know, Omicron is filling the hospital with children. So how can a Supreme Court decision be sound when the science itself is like going everywhere? So, okay, lawyers, lawyers, can you answer that? Justine, you want to comment on that? Or otherwise I will, but I will anyway at the end. But justine, did you want to say something? Me? I'll let you answer it, Cindy. What? What? I'll let you answer that. Okay, let me just say, and then Barry, the reason is, is that the Supreme Court doesn't decide on science. They're deciding on an interpretation of the, as they should. They are deciding on an interpretation of the Constitution. What they have got before them right now, and it's critical to all of us, is whether or not under the U.S. Constitution, the president can go around bossing private businesses. And if, or is that an exceeding of presidential authority? Okay, they're not going to decide on the science. That's why I sort of wanted to keep the science out of this discussion. This is a legal discussion. And does the president have this extra constitutional right to tell an employer that he's got to vaccinate his employees? Okay, Barry, who's next? Okay, I think a more accurate way of saying pretty much the same thing is that a reviewing court is not going to be deciding the facts. And of course, in this matter, it's a matter of facts based on what the science is. I think they're going to take the easy way out, which is just to say it's not valid because of the way that it is being done through OSHA, without a review period, etc. etc. What they might do, if they do want to uphold it, if they like the idea of the president being able to do it somehow, would be to remand it to the lower courts to take testimony on the facts as they stand today. I think they're going to do less than that because they are regarding it as an emergency. They took this up pretty quickly. Jane wants to say something, I think, right, Jane? Yeah, I think the question about whether they've been approved or not is not as important. Because the methods to test are pretty sound. I mean, how these companies have decided that, yes, yes, this is pretty effective. Companies? Are you saying, Jane, companies? About Pfizer and Moderna, the vaccines have undergone some testing and based on the tests that they decided that, very likely, that they would be effective. I mean, it's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And they have to go through and I'm glad the approval process is very rigorous. Eric, did you have, I'm sorry, Jane, you through? Jane? I'm not sure. Okay, Eric, did you have your hand up? No, justine. Yeah, justine had her. I just wanted to just kind of go back to where Eric was asking and Sandy or answer and then pulling from what Nathan presented at the beginning, in the original case, Nathan had mentioned that they weren't deciding in that case whether the vaccination was effective, but they were deciding along the lines of that. There was a general common belief that the people had that. So I think that just kind of goes into answer Eric's question a little bit based on what Nathan had mentioned. Right. Okay, Eric, are we going to say something? Yeah, but so does, I mean, so the question is the Jacobson really still got teeth or not? Yes, that's another question, yeah. Or whether it's even similar. There are key differences. There are key, key differences. For one thing, it was decided in the Jacobson, Jacobson case, that a state could mandate vaccinations. The question is, can the federal government? A second one is that in the Massachusetts case, that it was decided that the smallpox vaccines had been around for 100 years and did have enough testing that people believed in them. I would ask the question, do people believe in these vaccines? I honestly don't know that. That's my question then. What does the people have to say something because it looks like it's being decided by the governments, bureaucrats, and is there any... They're just not bureaucrats, by the way. No, is there any leverage from the people, democratic leverage? I mean, something to... I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm dreaming, but is there a way to do a public consultation? No, I don't think so. And I'll just say one thing, and I hope other people have questions. People cannot decide to abrogate individual liberties, no matter what they vote. Say for instance, they voted today. The whole United States voted that it was perfectly fine to segregate society. Even if the majority voted that way, it's unconstitutional, because you cannot destroy individual liberty. In other words, the collective cannot decide that the constitution no longer exists. Then any government that has fake science and an agenda could come and impose... I mean, I don't know. There's something here that is this... I mean, I understand that the constitution is sacred, that individual rights should not be infringed. But on that base, any government can come, scare people, and then just have people to go through. How can the people defend themselves against any... The courts are supposed to defend individuals, right? But, Jane, were you going to say something? No, I don't think that they can pass a vaccine mandate without granting exemptions, without granting exemptions. I mean, I like the university is when you have to get, you have to get tested. You either get the vaccine or get tested. They didn't, though. UVM has no exceptions. Barry, were you going to say something? Okay. Well, I want to make it really clear, first off, that the FDA on August 21st gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine. Now, so based on that, I don't see how the... If there was the ability to mandate a vaccine, I don't think they could do the other... They could mandate the other two. But as long as there was one that was approved, they can... Yeah, but there they have. The Jacobson case, wait, the Jacobson case very clearly said that individual liberties can be abrogated in a state of emergency for the public good. You're right. Yeah, we all agree on that. So the question is, the question is, is there presently... If it was on the state level, if we're talking about state mandates, is there presently an emergency such that justifies abrogation of individual liberties? That's... Yes, it said no, and it says... Yeah, but guess it said no. Yeah, we all believe no, but some people... A lot of people believe no. No, who gave up emergency powers. The governor stated clearly he did not think there was an emergency, and he refused to take emergency powers. Well, it's not going to happen in Vermont, as long as these governor probably, but I'm talking about some other states, not Florida either. Yeah, right. Okay, so Sandy, there's a couple of questions in the chat. One just got answered because the Pfizer vaccine has in fact been approved. I'm not gonna... Okay, there is a wrinkle in that. I'll bring it up if you want me to, but I don't... I mean, I don't care enough. Well, you can stipulate up to that. Okay. The other questions were, what other required testing and approval are needed to mandate other vaccines that the COVID-19 vaccine hasn't gone through yet? And I think the implication then would be that would make it eligible for mandate in schools for children. It's already been mandated in schools for kids. That's my point. And I don't know... Yeah, the thing is, you're asking me the question, I guess, or you're asking in general, how long do the tests have to be? It's usually years, but I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But I just know that they have not been approved yet. Those two have not been approved. Can I just follow up? So I think the question was, because I was taking a tracker when it was asked, I think it was in response to... I don't remember whose comment. Maybe it was Sandy who said that the biggest difference here is that the small packs of vaccine was approved for such and such years. No, I didn't know that because I don't even know if there was an FDA. Right. So I think that's where the question is from, is that how can we say that this is any different when we don't have a criteria of how long it should be approved? I think that's where the question is coming from. I think the difference, as I've stated, is that smallpox had been around for 100 years and so had vaccines. What I did say also is that I don't know if there even was an FDA at that time, but they had been tested for at least, according to an article that I read, almost 100 years. They've been used, put it that way, probably because some milkmaid was... I think that is the story, actually, that a milkmaid was received some kind of cowpox and that seemed to work against smallpox. Anyway, Jane. Yeah. Well, I'm looking at UVM's website and it says that you may request, that the employees may request an exemption for either medical or religious reason. So, anyways. So, yeah. Those exemptions do exist. They're just very difficult to get. Okay. Any other questions or thoughts? We've got a little bit over. Go ahead, Jane. Yeah. Also, you said that businesses are treated as people. Now, that's another... I mean, are you saying that businesses can't be regulated at all? No, that's not... No, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not saying that. What I said is that usually businesses oppose being regulated. Sometimes they win and sometimes the government wins. Yeah. Christine. I was just going to say to follow up, there was a constitutional case and the name is escaping me right now, but there are a series of them that decided that businesses, corporations are people and they have the same rights as people. And it was in the early 1900s, I believe. And that's where that kind of stemmed from. That decision has also been used in campaign financing situations. Anyway, are there any final thoughts or questions or anything on anybody's mind as we await... Remember that it's a very important decision that will come out of the Supreme Court about this. I think it's going to be the key question. It's not really the same as the Jacobson case because I think the court's going to decide whether or not the president on his own can issue a vaccine mandate without having legislation passed through the Congress and without an individual state like Vermont passing the mandates. In Jacobson it seems clear that when there is an emergency and when the public health and safety requires it, a state like Vermont, a state like Massachusetts, can mandate a vaccine. I don't know if there's any authority, however, as far as I can tell, there isn't that the president can do this. So this is a very important question that faces us. Do we want the president of the United States to have that authority? Do we? Even in an emergency, do we? Okay, so I think we should, unless there's further comments, anybody else have anything? Robin's done the research. It looks like the FDA was founded in 1906. Right. Well, this case, maybe because of Smallpox. This case, the Jacobson case was 1905. It certainly didn't have the power then that it has now. Fauci has really expanded the role, put it that way. Tony Anthony Fauci, the current, what is he anyway? He's ahead of a big deal, right? He's the one that is in charge, really, of vaccine policy. He was the person that most expanded the role of all of our public health institutions. It has been under Anthony Fauci, but he's been in power for 50 years. So in 1906, I would doubt that the FDA had the kind of cloud that it now has for better or for worse. But anyway, so be watching for the decision that will come out of the court this week, I hope. And then next week, we are presenting with Professor Rob Williams the whole idea of how consent is really arrived at in the United States about a lot of important topics. He'll be discussing the whole idea that Professor Noam Chomsky put out in his books called The Manufacturing of Consent and how that happens in a supposed free society. So join us then and then Justine, our famous public defender, will be here in a later time to also discuss Roby Wade and what are going to be the consequences of what the court will determine in that. Okay, well, thank you very much and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye.