Thursday afternoon, President Biden addressed the nation to unveil his latest plan to combat COVID-19. Remember, he promised us last year that he had a plan to “crush COVID” and save the economy. Well, he lied – 241,000 more people have died from COVID since Joe Biden took office.

Biden’s new big idea basically boils down to brute government force. He issued a series of new mandates, ordering federal employees and approximately 80 million private sector workers to get vaccinated.

In doing so, he proved that he lied back in December when he said he would not mandate vaccines. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki lied in July when she said that mandating vaccines “is not the role of the federal government.”

When it comes to matters of public health, there’s no question that the government has tremendous power – power which most Americans are witnessing for the first time in their lives. But it is usually vested in state and local authorities, as Jen Psaki clearly suggested.

So, where exactly is Biden getting this new legal authority to issue vaccine mandates?

Well, he probably doesn’t have that power, and it seems the White House knows it. In fact, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain raised eyebrows with a tweet about Biden’s vaccine mandate being “the ultimate work-around.”

We’ll have to wait and see how this goes, but generally courts frown on efforts to “work-around” the law. And the legal challenges are already coming. The Republican National Committee is vowing to sue, and a number of major unions (here and here) are also opposed to the vaccine mandate.

And what about the millions of people who had COVID, recovered and now have natural immunity? Once again, natural immunity didn’t seem to factor at all into the president’s new mandate.

By the way, the mandate doesn’t apply to illegal aliens, so it won’t have any impact on Biden’s massive super-spreader event at the southern border. But it is a useful distraction from Biden’s abject failure in Afghanistan, record inflation, surging crime and soaring gas prices.

Biden’s Contempt

I don’t know if you happened to catch Biden’s address Thursday, but I was struck by the angry, bitter tone and utter contempt the president displayed for millions of American citizens. It was another deeply disturbing example of the left’s growing intolerance and totalitarian impulses.

For example, Biden attacked conservative governors who have sought to protect freedom, saying, “This is not about freedom or personal choice.”

It’s hard to imagine those words coming out of the mouth of any American president, especially one who believes so strongly in the “freedom” and “personal choice” to kill innocent unborn babies.

But he didn’t stop there. As the Associated Press put it, “Biden’s War On Virus Becomes War On Unvaccinated.”

Our “unity president” threatened the unvaccinated, declaring:

Many of us [who are vaccinated] are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated… We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers… We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.

But Biden’s message was thoroughly confusing. He repeatedly said throughout his address, “If you’re fully vaccinated, you’re highly protected from severe illness.”

So why are the vaccinated so “frustrated,” and why do they need to be “protected” from unvaccinated workers?

And while the president was bashing American citizens, the White House was buttering up the Taliban.

Inexplicably, multiple White House aides, from Jen Psaki to members of the National Security Council, were praising the Taliban yesterday for their “cooperation,” “flexibility,” “businesslike” and “professional” behavior.

These “businesslike” terrorists killed more than 2,400 U.S. troops and maimed thousands more. Why isn’t Biden expressing his “frustration” with them? Why isn’t Biden’s “patience” with the Taliban “wearing thin”?

Why does our president always seem to reserve his anger and harshest rhetoric for American citizens and not our enemies?

Biden’s Department Of Injustice

Here’s something else Biden lied about: He promised that the Justice Department in a Biden/Harris Administration would “not be influenced by politics.” But politics is the only thing that seems to be influencing Biden’s Justice Department.

Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was suing the state of Texas to overturn its new pro-life heartbeat law, claiming that the law is “in open defiance of the Constitution.”

But the Supreme Court just rejected legal efforts to block implementation of the law, and there are other ongoing legal challenges. So why is Biden’s Justice Department interjecting itself now?

Why is Biden’s Justice Department threatening the right of states to pass their own election laws, even after the Supreme Court upheld that right?

While the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, it is not supposed to be a pawn of the president’s political agenda. But that’s exactly what’s going on. Biden is using the Justice Department to force his radical agenda on the states.

But that’s not the only thing Biden has politicized.

This week, our “unity president” launched a purge of the non-partisan advisory boards that create policy for our military academies, an outrageous power grab that will only further the politicization of the military.

Good News

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed election integrity legislation into law.

• At least a dozen Republican governors issued statements blasting President Biden’s vaccine mandate and vowing legal action against it.

• Seven Republican state attorneys general vowed to resist Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandates.

• The Biden White House withdrew its radical anti-Second Amendment nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

• Democrat unity on the massive $3.5 trillion socialist spending bill is showing signs of cracking. At least two House Democrats are publicly objecting to the rushed and secretive process being used to pass the biggest spending bill in U.S. history.

• Two Indiana boys riding their bikes stopped, got off and stood politely when they came upon a funeral for a veteran.