THE 100 REPORT
Judge Rules in Favor of Ben Brown; Ends All Mask Mandates in MO
A Missouri judge has ended public health director tyranny across Missouri. A landmark case brought by Shannon Robinson, Satchmo’s Bar and Grill, and Church of the Word in Fenton, MO, was decided today. The lawsuit challenged regulations issued by the Department of Health and Senior Services that unconstitutionally authorize local medical directors to unilaterally issue rule after rule, order after order, quarantine after quarantine, affecting Missourians, their businesses, schools, schoolchildren and all sectors of Missourian’s lives. Judge Green, sitting in our state’s capitol city, struck down those regulations in a sweeping opinion that leaves no stone unturned.
Judge Green’s order reads: “This case is about whether Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services regulations can abolish representative government in the creation of public health laws, and whether it can authorize closure of a school or assembly based on the unfettered opinion of an unelected official. This court finds it cannot.” The order is in full force as of today, November 22, and requires the Secretary of State to strike the offending regulations that allow for health director tyranny from the state register and Code of State Regulations.
The judge elaborated, striking all regulations that allow the unfettered discretion of local health authorities to issue public health orders and close schools and businesses. He further recognized that quarantine orders from local health authorities that exclude healthy children from school are invalid, noting that children can only be excluded from school based on an existing state regulation not at issue in the case. That regulation (19 CSR 20-20.030) provides that only those students who are in a position to transmit an illness, such as those that are contagious (not those simply exposed to an illness) can be excluded, and must be permitted to return to school if not contagious according to their doctor.
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person. . .there can be no liberty,” the order states. Further, Judge Green adopted the maxim set forth by Michigan Justice Viviano, “It is incumbent on the courts to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, not hysteria. . . .One hopes that this great principle – essential to any free society, including ours – will not itself become yet another casualty of COVID-19.” He also found that the regulations allowing health-director rule “break our three-branch system of government in ways that a middle school civics student would recognize.”
The Judge not only ordered that the regulations be stricken from the register, but also that all existing health orders issued by local health authorities are “null and void.”
The Judge cautioned any local legislative body that prior to enacting any orders or ordinances relating to public health, pursuant to existing state law, the proposed provisions must be “so necessary that a violation of the law justifies applicable criminal sanctions.”
“It is an exciting, momentous occasion in our state. Missouri can return to the constitutional principles of a three-branch system: Executive, Judicial and Legislative. It is high time for our executive branch to stay in its lane and stop acting as a legislative branch,” said Shannon Robinson, leader of St. Louis County Supporting Kids and Community.
Ben Brown of Satchmo’s Bar and Grill said, “The result is tyranny, and it is over. It is time for our businesses, schools and residents to embrace the freedom that this decision provides. It is time to make masks optional, end needless quarantines of Missouri’s children, and go back to living productive lives while allowing individuals the freedom to choose how and when they interact with others based on each person’s or family’s personal decisions.”
Ben Brown is a conservative candidate for State Senate who has been presented to The 100. Learn more about his campaign or chip in at benbrownforsenate.com
Eigel Advocates for Eliminating Personal Property Tax
Senator Bill Eigel took to facebook to advocate on behalf of eliminating the personal property tax—a popular proposal that Eigel has championed during his time in the senate.
“We owe the People of Missouri a tax cut after what happened on the gas tax. Let’s start with eliminating the personal property tax! Most states don’t levy this awful tax on vehicles and we have one of the highest rates of the states that do.
Cutting your taxes is what Republicans always promise in campaign season—time to make good on that.”- Senator Bill Eigel
Meanwhile, Biden Asks Court to Reinstate Unconstitutional Corporate Vaccine Mandate
The Biden administration on Tuesday filed an emergency court motion that seeks the immediate reinstatement of its rules requiring many employers to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19. The Justice Department filed the request with the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which last week was designated as the court that would decide legal challenges filed around the country to the vaccine-or-testing rules. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration earlier this month formally issued the requirements, which apply to businesses with 100 or more employees. The rules cover roughly 84 million workers and are scheduled to take effect Jan. 4. The rules reflect “OSHA’s judgment that these measures are necessary to mitigate Covid-19 transmission in the workplace, and the grievous harms the virus inflicts on workers,” the Justice Department said in Tuesday’s court filing. OSHA, the department said, estimated that the mandate would save more than 6,500 worker lives and prevent more than 250,000 hospitalizations over the course of the next six months. State and federal data broadly show unvaccinated people are primarily driving pandemic numbers.
Many lawsuits challenging the rules, including from Republican-led states and some employers, have rightly argued OSHA is engaged in unlawful government overreach.
Blunt, Hawley Question VA Secretary After Email Warns Veterans Could Be Removed From Homes Over Vaccine Mandate Issues
The Republican lawmakers sent a letter to VA Commissioner Denis McDonough Tuesday, calling for information on its contract termination process, plans to move veterans from non-compliant homes to other facilities, and the possibility of contracts with other long-term care facilities to ensure veterans are relocated to facilities near their families.
“We are concerned that implementation of these federal vaccine mandates will cause Missouri’s long-term care facilities to lose their status as federal contractors with the VA and jeopardize the well-being of our veterans,” the senators said. “Additionally, we are concerned that federal vaccine mandates will create staffing shortages in long-term care facilities in Missouri, and that there will not be an open, compliant facility with sufficient staff capacity to accept veteran patients.”
Blunt and Hawley pointed to an emergency rule instituted by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) regarding emergency closures for health facilities facing staffing shortages due to vaccine mandates.
Texas Parents Are Fighting Back, And Getting Doxxed For It.
Parents in Texas have been increasingly concerned over controversial issues circulating at their children’s schools, causing an uptick in involvement and pushback from school administrators. This week, Norma Garcia-Lopez, the co-chairwoman of the Racial Equity Committee in the Fort Worth Independent School District, doxxed a group of concerned parents who had filed a lawsuit against the district’s mask mandates. Doxxing is when a person’s personal information, such as home address and phone number, is published online for punitive reasons. “She doxxed us ... I got 17 voicemails at my work from one person,” Kerri Rehmeyer, a Fort Worth mother who sued the school district to block a mask mandate, told Fox News . “It's astounding what the ‘White Privilege’ power from Tanglewood has vs a whole diverse community that cares for the well being of others,” Garcia-Lopez wrote on a Twitter account that has now disappeared. “These are their names: Jennifer Treger, Todd Daniel, Kerri Rehmeyer and a coward Jane Doe. Internet do your thang.” In August, a court granted a temporary injunction against the mask mandates, but the school district continues to appeal the injunction to higher courts. While Rehmeyer opposes mask mandates, she told Fox News she believed Garcia-Lopez targeted and doxxed her because she and other parents also oppose the teaching of critical race theory in schools.
Canceling Thomas Jefferson
After more than a century, the New York City Council is removing a statue of Thomas Jefferson from its chamber. The decision, which was made by the New York City Public Design Commission, was unanimous. It was wrong, too. Justifying the move, Councilperson Adrienne Adams proposed that Jefferson had to go because he “embodied some of the most shameful parts of our country’s long and nuanced history.” But, ironically enough, it is precisely “nuanced history” that is missing from this analysis. Like many people, Jefferson could, indeed, be hypocritical and self-contradictory. Like many people from his region, he did, indeed, own slaves (and, unlike George Washington, he did not free them upon his death). And, like many people of his generation, he possessed some unpleasant private views. But it is not for any of that that we celebrate him. We celebrate him because he authored the Declaration of Independence — a magisterial document, which, both at home and abroad, has served as a beacon of hope and liberty throughout that “long” history to which Adrienne Adams refers. This matters, for, as Princeton’s Sean Wilentz told the commission in a letter, the statue in question “specifically honors Jefferson for” his role in penning the Declaration, which Wilentz describes as “his greatest contribution to America, indeed, to humankind.” Jefferson deserves to be honored for that contribution, which has served, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, as “an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times,” as “the definitions and axioms of free society,” and as “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”
Just for Fun: Conservative Senators Weigh in on Best Thanksgiving Side
Sen. Rick Brattin
Green bean casserole
Sen. Bill Eigel
My mom’s turkey stuffing and jellied cranberry sauce. The stuff that comes in a can and can be sliced with a butter knife. It’s also the stuff that can outlast a nuclear winter if stored properly so win-win there.
Sen. Denny Hoskins
Broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole
Sen. Andrew Koenig
A turkey leg
Sen. Mike Moon
Sweet potato casserole topped with brown sugar and pecans (oven-baked) or green bean casserole or “trees and raisins” (a concoction of broccoli, raisins, onions, mayonnaise, and bacon)
Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin
Brussel sprouts with bacon
Sen. Bob Onder
Mashed potatoes and turkey gravy
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The 100 Newsletter is intended to be a conservative review of the most up to date, inside information of what is going on in Missouri Politics and does not reflect an endorsement of any campaign or committee.