[PJ] If there is still one person somewhere in America who doesn’t think President Joe Biden and the toxic progressives who increasingly call the shots for the White House and the Democratic Party are heading swiftly down an authoritarian road, here’s yet another illustration:
"The Administration strongly opposes section 716, which would detract from readiness and limit a commander’s options for enforcing good order and discipline when a Service member fails to obey a lawful order to receive a vaccination ...
"The Administration also strongly opposes section 720, which would create a new and overly broad exemption from the vaccination requirement for previous infection that would undermine the effectiveness of the requirement."
Those graphs are from a September 21 Statement of Administration Policy issued by the Biden White House concerning a congressional proposal to bar dishonorable discharges for members of the U.S. military who decline to be vaccinated against Covid.
For those who might have expected Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to step up in defense of the 1.3 million active-duty military service members and 800,000 reservists, be aware that he was asked his position on the issue during a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Austin’s response wasn’t exactly a profile in courage, as he responded by saying that "taking a vaccine is a requirement. I’ll just leave it at that," Note that neither Austin nor the White House statement made clear or even remotely acknowledged what is at stake for every declining service member on this issue.
The proposal being objected to by the Biden administration was introduced by Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) as an amendment to the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Green’s amendment enjoyed bipartisan support in the House Armed Services Committee. The Senate still has to act on the NDAA and it is far from certain that the upper chamber will endorse Green’s call.
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