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This is a long one—thank you for keeping up on the details of these big events and summarizing them neatly for those of us outside the beltway.

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I watched two network newscasts Thursday night and was still left scratching my head over the SCOTUS split decision. Thank you for this concise explanation in today’s newsletter: the vaccine mandate was kept in place for workers at health facilities which get federal Medicare or Medicaid funding. The reasoning was simple - the feds can set health rules when federal money is directly involved.

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I think the business vaccine mandate would have had a much stronger foundation had the Congress expressly approved a law which gave OSHA that power.

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Congress will not bite the hands that feed it.

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Congress just needs be more specific. For years, the Legislative Branch has gotten away with the courts taking a wide-ranging view of their instructions to the Executive Branch agencies. In recent years, the courts have tightened things up.

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Exactly. The political instincts of elected representatives is to avoid the most difficult issues while crafting just enough "bipartisan mediation" to get thru the next election -- while kicking the can over to the legislative branch.

The Executive branch has endless "signing statements" and executive authority and the Judicial branch has endless mountains of case law from which to pick and choose.

It's a pretty messy system.

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