To Your Health: In a major move to quash the resurging coronavirus pandemic, President Biden announced yesterday that he will use executive orders and federal rules to require or push two-thirds of the American work force to get vaccinated. The administration also intends to compel vaccination for federal contractors as well as 17 million health care workers in hospitals and other institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.

  The President said yesterday,  “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

  A handful of Republican governors immediately declared their opposition. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem tweeted even before Biden spoke: “South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom. @JoeBiden see you in court.”

  Using the federal financial cudgel, Biden will also order the Department of Labor to draft a rule mandating that all businesses with 100 or more workers require their employees to either get vaccinated or face weekly testing. 

  The federal employee mandate will apply to about four million employees of the executive branch, which includes the White House, all federal agencies, and the armed services. With some exceptions for religion and disability, federal workers would have 75 days to get vaccinated.

  Biden said in announcing his plans, “Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective, and free.”

Roe v. Woe: The Justice department filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas to block its new law that effectively bans abortion. The suit argues that the Texas law is unconstitutional because it dodges government responsibility by turning over enforcement to the public.

   Under the law, private parties can sue a woman who gets an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, thereby only technically complying with the landmark Supreme Court case that made abortion legal. 

  In an abortion-related development, the child born to the woman whose legal appeal resulted in the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling has publicly identified herself at long last.

  Shelley Lynn Thornton, whose mother Norma McCorvey carried her to term while appealing to be allowed to have an abortion, is identified as the “Roe baby” in the new book “The Family Roe: An American Story” to be released next week.

Departure and Repression: A passenger flight carrying American citizens, Canadians and Brits left Kabul yesterday as the Taliban says regular flights will resume. They are not allowing just anyone to leave. The Taliban check for what they consider to be acceptable travel documents. 

  The extremists are suppressing dissent to their new regime.  

  Agence France-Presse, reports that  Taliban fighters arrested people using cellphones to film the demonstrations. The BBC said its reporters, among others, were prevented from filming in Kabul on Wednesday.

  Two reporters working for Afghanistan’s Etilaatroz newspaper posted photos of their injuries sustained when they were beaten by the Taliban for covering women’s rights protests in Kabul. 

  Nemat Naqdi, 28, a video journalist, was purple on the backs of his legs down to his knees. There was a large purple bruise down his right shoulder blade. Taqi Daryabi, 22, was purple from his ribcage down to the backs of his knees. You can make out the slashing marks of whatever was used to flail them.

  Their faces were injured as well.

  Naqdi said that when he asked why he was being beaten, a Taliban fighter said, “You are lucky you weren’t beheaded.”

Final Opinion: Under pressure to retire while Democrats control Congress, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told NPR, “I do not believe I should stay on the Supreme Court, or want to stay on the Supreme Court, until I die.” 

  Breyer told legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg in an interview to promote his book, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics, “And when exactly I should retire, or will retire, has many complex parts to it. I think I’m aware of most of them, and I am, and will consider them.”

  The court has six conservatives and three liberals. Retiring now, Breyer might ensure that liberals keep those three seats. 

The Spin Rack: Facing ferocious opposition from the gun lobby, President Biden withdrew his nomination of David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Chipman is a former federal agent who had promised to crack down on the use of semiautomatic guns and high-capacity bullet magazines. — The EPA says it will invoke environmental protections to block development of a massive gold mine adjacent to Alaska’s Bristol Bay and the native run for sockeye salmon. — Forty-four year old quarterback Tom Brady threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns in a 31-29 win over the Dallas Cowboys. — Facebook has announced the introduction of glasses that take photos and video. They are not connected to the internet … not yet.

General Confusion: Former President Donald Trump issued a statement bemoaning the removal of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statue Wednesday from its pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond. 

  “Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all,” Trump said, even though Lee was a traitor who led a war against his own government. “Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia,” Trump said even though Lee believed in slavery and fought to defend it.

  Nonetheless, the former Commander in Chief said, “If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago. What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!”

  And muzzle loading muskets … those would have been useful, too.

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