Remember that whole vaccine mandate? It seems like only yesterday President Joe Biden was trying on his Darth Vader act and trying to convince us he Really Meant Business™ this time about requiring people in the private sector to get the jab.
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said last month when he announced a rule change that would require anyone who worked for a company with more than 100 employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine or get tested every week.
The requisite rules to enforce this edict have tarried, however.
The rule would have to come from the Occupational Safety and Hazards Administration. As The New York Times pointed out this week, “OSHA also has the authority to quickly issue a rule, known as an emergency temporary standard, if it can show that workers are exposed to grave danger and that the rule is necessary to address it. The rule must also be feasible for employers to enforce.”
Either the agency was caught flat-footed or they haven’t been able to formulate a rule that would pass muster, but as of Saturday, the Loch Ness Monster and the federal vaccine mandate for private sector workers are equally real.
Thus, President Biden’s efforts for the moment have been focused on pressuring private sector companies to adopt vaccine mandates of their own.
That’s why he visited Clayco Inc. outside of Chicago on Thursday — to discuss COVID safety and push for work vaccine requirements among blue-collar workers in Illinois, trying to convince other companies to go along with his pronouncement.
Well, check that — that’s part of the reason why he visited Clayco Inc. on Thursday.
According to Fox Business, the head of the construction company is a major donor to the Democratic Party, with six figures in Biden’s coffers alone.
“Clayco CEO Bob Clark is a major Democratic donor who contributed more than $137,000 to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to records with the Federal Election Commission,” Fox News reported.
“Clark also served as a bundler, bringing in at least $100,000 to Biden’s 2020 campaign, and contributed $1.6 million to Democratic campaigns in total,” Forbes reported.
According to Forbes, Clayco is hardly a small concern, with $3.3 billion in annual revenue and 2,400 employees.
As of Friday, neither Clayco nor the White House had responded to inquiries from Forbes.
If the mega-donor and bundler was hoping for an “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” performance from Biden, his money was sadly misspent. Even by the low standards of the pro forma Biden speech, this one was particularly shaky.
For what it’s worth, Biden promised the OSHA rule that would make vaccine mandates happen was on its way.
“The Labor Department is going to shortly issue an emergency rule — which I asked for several weeks ago, and they’re going through the process — to require all [employers] with more than 100 people, whether they work for the federal government or not — this is within … the purview of the Labor Department — to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or face testing at least once a week,” Biden said.
“In total, this Labor Department vaccination requirement will cover 100 million Americans, about two-thirds of all the people who work in America. And here’s the deal: These requirements are already proving that they work.”
Few specifics were offered, however, and keep in mind this was the good part. Here were the bad parts:
Biden mixes up “television” and says “telephone” instead. pic.twitter.com/o3ucvHOAjW
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 7, 2021
What is Biden saying? pic.twitter.com/WZUKD4RDX8
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 7, 2021
And here’s the worst part: This looks ethically appalling, as American Accountability Foundation president Tom Jones pointed out to Fox Business.
“Whether it is ambassadorships or other senior administration positions, the Biden Administration has continuously rewarded those who financially boosted their campaign,” Jones said. “Continuing the swampy practices of blatant paid-to-play should be of no surprise considering Biden has been a position for the past 40 years.”
Consider this, though: He got two first-tier viral Biden gaffes out of the visit. That’s $68,500 per gaffe.
Sure, that’s $68,492 more than I’d be willing to pay, but when you’re breathing the kind of rarefied air that allows you to donate six figures to a presidential campaign, it almost seems like a steal.
Then again, so does getting the president of the United States to visit your job site. It seems less like a coincidence and a lot more like a gift.