Morning Wire XX
[0] A U .S. Court of Appeals has blocked the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more employees.
[1] The move comes after a group of states, religious groups, and private businesses brought a lawsuit against the administration.
[2] What are the next steps?
[3] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Monday, November 15th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] With 60 % of the entire U .S. population fully vaccinated, new treatments emerging, and hospitalizations declining, the COVID landscape, in America is rapidly changing.
[6] We talk to an expert who says the pandemic is about to be over.
[7] No one should be dying of COVID right now.
[8] Nobody.
[9] And after 13 contentious years, the Britney Spears conservatorship comes to an abrupt end.
[10] Will the decision have broader implications for the 1 .3 million Americans under guardianship?
[11] It's a great day for Britney Spears, and it's a great day for justice.
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[13] Stay tuned.
[14] We have the news you need to know.
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[21] On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a major blow to the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for all employers with 100 or more employees.
[22] The order, issued by OSHA, forces companies to mandate vaccines or frequent testing for employees and would impact some 85 million Americans.
[23] But the court said it cannot move forward, calling the rule a staggering overreach.
[24] The court's move follows several states and companies, including the Daily Wire, filing lawsuits in multiple districts.
[25] So, John, you spoke to Daily Wire General Counsel, Josh Her, about the court blocking the OSHA rule.
[26] Right.
[27] What did he tell you?
[28] Well, first I asked him to walk us through the ruling and explain its significance, and here's what he told me. This is a pretty huge victory for the businesses that would have been subject to the mandate, who were all at risk of being fined potentially millions of dollars a week if they refused to fire employees who didn't share their personal medical information with their employer.
[29] What's really interesting about this decision from a legal perspective is that the court started by saying that the rule is probably unconstitutional.
[30] It ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which created OSHA, was, quote, not intended to make sweeping pronouncements of public health affecting every member of society.
[31] But beyond that, it said that even if Congress wanted to, it probably could not implement a mandate like this because it doesn't have the power to do so under the Constitution's Commerce Clause and under the non -delegation doctrine.
[32] That argument is one that the Daily Wire raised in its briefs, and it'll probably lead to some interesting constitutional questions in that case and in other courts, both for the vaccine mandate and potentially other cases in the future.
[33] He also told me that the Fifth Circuit didn't actually even need to deal with the constitutional issues to rule that the mandate was in fact illegal.
[34] It ruled that even on its own terms, the mandate was, was, quote, staggeringly overbroad, arbitrary and capricious, and that it makes no sense, calling it a one -size -fits -all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for difference in workplaces and workers.
[35] It also said that the mandate, quote, flunks a cost -benefit test and violates the constitutional structure that safeguards our collective liberty.
[36] The court also called the mandate, a rare government pronouncement that is both over -inclusive and under -inclusive because it applies to every kind of employee without regard for whether their work environment is actually likely to spread COVID and under -inclusive because there's just no good reason to apply this rule to employers with 100 employees, but not to those with, for example, 99 employees.
[37] So does this OSHA mandate have any chance of surviving?
[38] Yeah, well, appears to be dead for now, but Josh assures me the legal battle is far from over.
[39] He also pointed out that the Biden administration is effectively telling businesses to ignore the court.
[40] So for the time being, the mandate is dead in the water.
[41] The administration has to try to convince the court that the stay needs to be lifted.
[42] And based on the court's opinions in this order, that's going to be a heavy lift.
[43] So it sounds like there's several more steps ahead.
[44] Definitely.
[45] Up next, we speak to a leading expert on on COVID cases, treatments, and natural immunity.
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[49] Tensions over government policy on COVID continue to rise, despite cases declining in many areas of the country, and new remarkably effective treatments becoming available.
[50] Here to discuss the changing COVID situation in the U .S. is Dr. Marty McCarrie, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
[51] Dr. McCarrie, thanks for joining us today.
[52] Thanks a lot.
[53] The first question is, you know, where do we stand right now with COVID in the U .S.?
[54] Are we still actually in a pandemic?
[55] Well, we're about to move into the endemic phase, which means it's just going to circulate at low levels for a long time.
[56] And the reason I say about to be is that it's staggered in different parts of the country we're in different phases in the southeast in many parts of the country now where it basically endemic low levels and will be there forever maybe and in the northeast where people are moving inside because of cold weather we're going to see a bump in cases as a part of the viral season and that's going to be a small bump that's going to be disconnected from hospitalizations by and large but we'll see that continue into January.
[57] So this will soon be like the flu going forward.
[58] That's right, or maybe even less of a strain on the population and hospitals.
[59] We saw some reports last week that showed that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines continue to prevent hospitalizations and most serious infections, but their effectiveness does taper off over time.
[60] What can you tell us about these results?
[61] Well, it appears to be true, and if you're old and high risk, that's a concern, and the boost may really sort of be helpful.
[62] But if in a young person, your intrinsic immune strength may be enough to supplement the vaccine.
[63] So it may be that in older, high -risk people, they get three doses total.
[64] In immediate moderate risk, young adults, they get two.
[65] And then healthy people like kids and adolescents and people in their 20s, they get one.
[66] That may be adequate.
[67] Speaking of children, you co -wrote an op -ed for the Wall Street Journal about vaccines and young children.
[68] Can you summarize some of those arguments you made there?
[69] Sure.
[70] Here's the deal with kids.
[71] First of all, we've only ever studied 1 ,500 kids in that 5 to 11 age group.
[72] So when people say they want to see more data, they have all the right to say that right now.
[73] Now, we do think it can be helpful in preventing COVID, which in a kid with a risk factor, the answer in my book is, go ahead and get the vaccine.
[74] That is a kid's obese or has some comorbid condition.
[75] Okay.
[76] And a kid who's already had COVID, no. There's no scientific basis for vaccinating somebody.
[77] with natural immunity.
[78] And for everyone else in between, I would say it's, you know, it's a close risk benefit ratio, but maybe one dose may be reasonable.
[79] You mentioned natural immunity.
[80] This is something that's often overlooked.
[81] Can you explain the importance of natural immunity?
[82] Well, natural immunity is very effective.
[83] The studies out of Israel show that on a population level, it's 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity.
[84] Now, I wouldn't encourage anyone to get the infection, but we got to be honest with the data.
[85] And that also means with natural immunity, we can rely on it.
[86] Right.
[87] You know, a question that a lot of people have been asking for a while is, can we return to normal?
[88] How would you respond?
[89] We've got to get back to normal and restore the human connection.
[90] No one should be dying of COVID right now.
[91] Nobody.
[92] Once we get Merck's drug approved in about three weeks, and that is, no one who's ever received Merck's new drug Molnapiravir, the Pfizer's new drug has ever died of COVID.
[93] That's how profoundly effective they are.
[94] They cut COVID deaths to zero.
[95] So that will officially mark the end of the pandemic phase and move into the endemic phase.
[96] And by the way, it completely obliterates any medical argument for a vaccine mandate when you have an effective treatment that's that profound.
[97] Yeah, all of this certainly does inform the debate over mandates.
[98] Dr. McCarrie, thank you so much for talking with us today.
[99] Thank you so much, John.
[100] That was Johns Hopkins, Dr. Marty McCarrie.
[101] After 13 years, Brittany Spears' conservatorship has finally come to an end.
[102] Friday, after a long and very public court battle, a Los Angeles County judge terminated the arrangement.
[103] Here to explain how the pop star was able to regain control of her estate and her life is Daily Wire Entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
[104] So, Megan, for those few people who maybe haven't been tracking this story, can you start by reminding us exactly?
[105] what this conservatorship entailed and how it came about?
[106] Sure.
[107] So starting in 2007, the singer began behaving erratically.
[108] She shaved her head.
[109] She attacked a photographer with an umbrella.
[110] And she had a standoff with police where she allegedly refused to surrender her sons to ex -husband Kevin Federline.
[111] Then in 2008, she was admitted to two psychiatric hospitals for evaluations.
[112] And it was about that time that a court established a temporary conservatorship controlled by her father.
[113] Jamie Spears.
[114] Now, it included two parts.
[115] One, for control over her estimated $60 million estate, and then the second one granted decision -making powers over her as a person.
[116] So that's the kind of arrangement that you typically see for people who have, say, dementia or psychiatric disorders.
[117] Right.
[118] I mean, pretty all -encompassing for all of their decisions.
[119] Exactly.
[120] It was.
[121] And I think it's important that we point out that during those 13 years, she released three albums, She had a long -running and very profitable Las Vegas show.
[122] So the question became whether someone who could do all that really met the criteria for a conservatorship.
[123] And I would say three things really sort of move the needle on this issue.
[124] So first in April, the New York Times released a documentary titled Framing Britney Spears.
[125] And it brought Britney's plight and the free Britney movement into focus.
[126] And that attention seemed to emboldened the pop star to speak up more in her own defense.
[127] So at a hearing this past summer, Britney Spears gave some very emotional testimony, and for the first time, the public was able to see a transcript.
[128] Here's what Spears said.
[129] She said, I've lied and told the whole world, I'm okay, and I'm happy.
[130] But now I'm telling you the truth, okay?
[131] I'm not happy.
[132] I can't sleep.
[133] I'm depressed.
[134] I cry every day.
[135] She said her father and his team forced her to wear an IUD to prevent her from having any more children.
[136] Wow.
[137] And I think that revelation in particular really appalled.
[138] a lot of people.
[139] Right.
[140] I mean, that was the thing that was the most heartbreaking for me to hear.
[141] So you said there were three things that contributed to this conservatorship ending.
[142] What was the third?
[143] So shortly after that hearing, the judge allowed Spears to choose her own attorney to represent her.
[144] She picked former prosecutor Matthew Rosengarde.
[145] Now, Rosengarde didn't have a lot of experience in probate law, which is what this conservatorship would fall under, but he does have a reputation for being a fierce advocate for his clients.
[146] And he aggressively moved to have Jamie Spears suspended as conservator, and we have to say he waged war in the press very effectively while initiating investigations into alleged abuse.
[147] I'm so pleased and proud to say, Jamie Spears is no longer a conservator.
[148] Jamie Spears has been suspended, and he will be formally removed shortly.
[149] So to give you an idea of just how, how effective Rosengart has been in the court of public opinion, many of Spears' fans begin calling him by the nickname Rosengad.
[150] And they were pretty justified in that enthusiasm.
[151] Within a few months, as we've seen, he was able to get that conservatorship terminated.
[152] So is the issue resolved?
[153] Brittany's free now?
[154] Brittany is free, but I wouldn't say the issue is entirely resolved.
[155] So Rosengart is saying that Spears's battle is going to continue.
[156] He filed a 110 -page petition last month requesting to depose Jamie Spears.
[157] Now, he's claiming Britney's father illegally placed secret recording devices in her bedroom to spy on her without her consent.
[158] Now, I mean, it's still really shocking that this was even possible.
[159] Is this something that's legal for families to do to their family members?
[160] It is legal, but a few senators are calling to investigate just that.
[161] So we're seeing bipartisan calls from people as far apart politically as senators Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz.
[162] That tells you something to re -examine conservatorships in light of this case.
[163] Wow.
[164] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[165] Yeah, anytime.
[166] That was Daily Wire Entertainment reporter, Megan Basham.
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