Axios: “Top Republicans are calling for a public uprising to protest President Biden’s broad vaccine mandates, eight months after more than 500 people stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the election. It has been decades since America has witnessed such blatant and sustained calls for mass civil disobedience against the U.S. government. J.D. Vance, a candidate for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in Ohio, urged ‘mass civil disobedience’ to Biden’s plan to use federal authority to mandate vaccination for roughly two-third of America workers. ‘I have a simple message for America’s business community,’ Vance wrote. ‘DO NOT COMPLY.’
Several Republican governors say they’ll go to court to try to stop the mandate for federal employees, contractors and private employers with 100+ workers (enforced by OSHA). South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem told Sean Hannity: ‘In South Dakota, we’re going to be free… We will take action. My legal team is already working.’ A top House GOP aide tells me: ‘Every Republican in the country – especially those running to the right in primaries – is salivating over Joe Biden [igniting] the vax debate… Republicans think that he’s made even pro-vax conservatives into ‘anti-vax mandate’ Americans.’ An official close to Biden tells me the West Wing ‘knew there would be strong backlash. But unless someone took this on, we’d be in a pandemic forever.’ ‘Biden beat Trump by promising strong action based on science. He can’t let Abbott/DeSantis block tough action.'”