A flight attendant sings for joy as he walks down the aisle of a jetliner after a federal court blocked the Biden administration's mask mandate. (Video screenshot)
Across America's friendly skies, airline passengers celebrated the federal court ruling blocking the Biden administration's mask mandate on Monday, with many shown on social media ripping off their face coverings with glee.
But a flight attendant may have best encapsulated the joy as he walked down a cabin aisle holding up a garbage sack for passengers while beautifully singing an impromptu refrain, "Throwwwww awayyyyy your masks."
See the video:
Posting again because Twitter deleted (?)
The end of the #maskmandate has this plane singing
Throw away your masks
— Guy P. Football (@Guy_P_Football) April 19, 2022
A cursory look at the videos circulating on social media of the moment airliner passengers learned of the ruling suggests that very few travelers were in favor of the mandate.
Rep Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote on Twitter that "the fact that 95%+ travelers took off their masks as soon as the mandate was invalidated should be a wake-up call to Democrats and Republicans who played along with them for the past two years."
But New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Paul Krugman questioned the motives of the joyful flyers.
"Soon we'll be seeing many incidents in which those who choose to protect themselves with KN95s etc face harassment, even violence. Because this was never about freedom," he intoned on Twitter.
On Tuesday, the Transportation Security Administration said it will not enforce the COVID-19 mask mandate on planes and other public transportation after a federal judge in Florida on Monday struck down the requirement.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday, however, expressed disappointment with the ruling. A Biden official said Tuesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will continue to recommend that people wear masks on public transit.
Last week, the Biden administration extended the mask mandate for travelers on federal transportation despite the pleas of the CEOs of 10 major airlines. The ruling Monday came from U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who was appointed by former President Trump.
She found that the CDC failed to justify its decision to extend the mandate 15 days to May 3 and did not go through the required notice and comment period for federal rulemaking. The judge found that the mandate, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, was outside the scope of the CDC's authority, calling it "arbitrary" and "capricious."
Mizelle, in her 59-page ruling, concluded the rule must be vacated nationwide, because "a limited remedy would be no remedy at all."
"Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate," she wrote.
Mizelle, 35, clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. She was appointed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate just before the end of the lame duck session in 2020.
All 50 states now have lifted their mask mandates, and, meanwhile, the "risk of contracting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during air travel is lower than from an office building, classroom, supermarket, or commuter train," affirms an article in JAMA Network, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"Modern airplanes maintain clean air by circulating a mix of fresh air and recycled air through HEPA filters, the same type of filters used in hospital operating rooms," the article explained.
Further, studies by medical experts along with data accumulated from two years of mandates indicate masks are not effective in curbing the spread of the virus. A study from Bangladesh touted by advocates of mask mandates was shown to have fundamental design flaws. And after researchers released more of their data, it was discovered there actually were minuscule infection differences between the treatment and control groups randomized across 600 villages.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Last year, America's doctors, nurses and paramedics were celebrated as frontline heroes battling a fearsome new pandemic. Today, under Joe Biden, tens of thousands of these same heroes are denounced as rebels, conspiracy theorists, extremists and potential terrorists. Along with massive numbers of police, firemen, Border Patrol agents, Navy SEALs, pilots, air-traffic controllers, and countless other truly essential Americans, they're all considered so dangerous as to merit termination, their professional and personal lives turned upside down due to their decision not to be injected with the experimental COVID vaccines. Biden's tyrannical mandate threatens to cripple American society – from law enforcement to airlines to commercial supply chains to hospitals. It's already happening. But the good news is that huge numbers of "yesterday's heroes" are now fighting back – bravely and boldly. The whole epic showdown is laid out as never before in the sensational October issue of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE GREAT AMERICAN REBELLION: 'We will not comply!' COVID-19 power grab ignites bold new era of national defiance."
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