Judging Freedom - What Nonsense Attacking Judge who knocked Down Mask Mandates

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

DOJ will appeal federal judge’s ruling dropping COVID masks for public transport if CDC deems it necessary The appeal would reverse a Florida judge's decision that ended the sweeping mandate #Masks #MaskmandateSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Good morning again. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. You, I, along with you, have been jumping for joy over the decision of Judge Catherine Kimball Mazzell, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, who ruled two days ago that the Center for Disease Prevention and Control, commonly called the CDC, is without authority to require the airlines and train companies and boat companies to require their customers to wear masks. This decision was greeted with great glee and joy almost everywhere in the United States except in academia and except inside the halls of the federal government of the DOJ itself because they're in work and reside those who believe the

government can tell us how to live. Now, what exactly did the CDC do and what exactly did Judge Mazzell rule? Well, the CDC ordered all airlines and all operators of trains and boats and mass transit to require their passengers to wear masks in the stations, on the platforms, at the gateways, and on the means of mass transit. So you're in an airport, you got to wear a mask. You're on the plane, you got to wear a mask. You're on the plane, you got to wear a mask. You're taking Amtrak from Boston to Washington, you got to wear a mask when you're in the train station and when you're on the train.

These orders were pretty much uniformly followed. The same CDC also said during the pandemic to landlords, if your tenant is out of work because your tenant's business has been shut down, because the government, following faulty science and authoritarian beliefs, shut down your business and the tenant doesn't have income, you can't evict the tenant. So the CDC, which was written to enhance public sanitation, decided it could tell landlords when they could and could not evict tenants and airlines when they could and could not require masks on their passengers. This is an interference with commercial activity at the critical point between those choosing the commerce, the critical point, landlord, tenant, airline, and passenger. Supreme Court ruled by 6-3 that the CDC did not have the authority to order the cessation

of evictions, not in favor of people being thrown out in the cold, but in favor of landlords being able to exercise their rights under leases and under common state-run, not federal, state-run real estate law. So the same CDC, which did not have the authority to tell landlords that they couldn't stop evictions, also, according to Judge Mazzell, does not have the authority to tell airlines that they have to wear masks. Now, why did she say this? Two reasons. One, when an administrative agency of the government, like the CDC, is going to issue a rule, it must publish the rule for 30 days, give the public an opportunity

to comment, and give Congress the opportunity to invalidate the rule. The CDC didn't do that. It just told the airlines, make everybody wear masks at airports and on planes. That is enough under the law to invalidate the regulation. But Judge Mazzell went further and said, let's see. Congress gave the CDC the right to make reasonable rules to enhance public sanitation without defining sanitation. What does sanitation mean? Sanitation means to keep a place clean. It doesn't mean to keep a mask on your face. So from that, Judge Mazzell, quite rationally, in my view, concluded Congress never gave the CDC the authority to compel people to wear masks. Hallelujah. What a relief. We can finally own our own faces again. Ah, but not in the DOJ and not in academia where they have attacked Judge Mazzell.

Oh, she's too young. She's only 35. Yours truly was 36 when I went on the bench. Oh, she doesn't have enough experience. Well, she worked for three years in the Justice Department. Oh, people in the ABA say she's not qualified. Well, she was confirmed by the United States Senate to a lifetime appointment. This is why we have, as I had, lifetime appointments, so that quite frankly, who gives a damn what the intelligentsia thinks?

You want a judge who's going to do the right thing, not a judge who's worried about how long she or he is going to stay on the bench because of who she and he might please or displease. No one knows where this will go. No one knows if the DOJ is going to appeal it. When it happened, the airlines immediately rescinded their mask regulations. I think it'll be very, very difficult for them to reinstate them. Old Joe and the White House people said, well, we probably won't appeal. Let's wait and see what the CDC recommends. And then some lefties in the DOJ, some authoritarians that still work there, said, well, we should appeal because this judge is wrong. And the bureaucrats in Atlanta, that's the CDC, do have the right to tell you how to wear masks. So I don't know how it's going to end.

I hope if there's an appeal that she's upheld. I'll tell you this, if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court, there's no question in my mind which way the Supreme Court will go because they ruled 6-3 against the CDC overreaching on the eviction of non-rent paying tenants issues. Thank God a judge has the courage to take a stand for human freedom. If you want to get philosophical about this, you own your own face. The government does not own it. You decide whether you're going to shave or not, whether you're going to put makeup on or not, whether you're going to put makeup

on or not, whether you're going to put mascara on or not, whether you're going to wear a mask or not. These are personal choices that individuals can make, freedom-loving individuals, not choices that the government makes for a nation of sheep. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.