TRENTON, NJ – As he was lobbying for a 90-day extension of his executive powers in early January through the New Jersey Senate and Assembly, Governor Phil Murphy promised New Jersey he would stop imposing pandemic health mandates upon the people. Hours before a previous emergency order agreement with the legislative bodies was set to expire, the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected Murphy’s request.
Instead, Murphy once again declared a public health emergency and regained his powers for at least another 90 days. At the time of the signing of the executive order, Murphy looked New Jersey straight in the eyes and said he will not impose any new vaccine mandates. He called news reports to the contrary fake news and misinformation.
He lied. Just like he lied during the election when he said he would not impose anymore COVID-19 related mandates or restrictions upon New Jerseyans.
Before the ink had dried on his latest executive order, Murphy imposed a new mandate on healthcare workers, once again threatening to fire yesterday’s front-line heroes, today’s enemy of the state, the unvaccinated nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers.
Now, he’s at it again. This weekend in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Murphy hinted that a vaccine booster mandate is coming soon.
When asked on NBC’s Meet the Press whether or not he supports vaccine mandates, after promising there would not be a vaccine mandate during his 2021 election campaign, the governor said yes.
He touted his healthcare worker vaccine mandate and hinted there might be more mandates to come.
“Frankly in New Jersey, we’re under boosted…getting folks up is a national challenge,” Murphy said. “Whether it’s mandate or not, we gotta get more folks boosted.”
“We’re not gonna manage this to zero, we have to learn to live with this,” Murphy said.
Now, as the omicron variant wanes, New Jersey’s rate of transmission is at just .55 today. Hospitalizations, new cases, deaths, ICU rates and new infections peaked back in the middle of January and earlier. Omicron is washing out to sea but the storm once again reveals the ugly remnants of a governor who is drunk on power and guided by science he openly admits he doesn’t understand.
The governor continues to insist face masks work, despite the CDC acknowledging that cloth face masks do not prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. He continues touting vaccines and booster, despite both not being able to stop the spread of the virus.
As the most intense wave of COVID-19 has subsided, Murphy is still clinging for life to 2020 science to fight a 2022 virus and in doing so continues to cause harm to New Jersey businesses, workers and most importantly children who remain masks for 7 hours per day. Many of those children are fully vaccinated and many of those had COVID-19 in the past 90 days.
Governor Phil Murphy has used the “fake it till you make it” playbook during the COVID-19 pandemic and to this date, he’s never made it. He continued this week to promise that he will beat the COVID-19 virus at the National Governor’s Association annual meeting. Yet, earlier in the conference admitted COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere.
The governor has been consistently inconsistent and his policy has been consistently flawed. None of the measures put in place by the governor have stopped any of the waves of COVID-19 and outcomes for the virus remain at the same levels whether you’re in a blue state like New Jersey or a red state like Florida.
The only thing that changed is the level of freedom. Schools were provided with hundreds of millions of dollars for air purifying systems, classroom protections and tools to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19, but according to the Governor, classrooms today are no safer than they were two years ago at the onset of the pandemic.
Students are subjected to rudimentary COVID-19 health protocols that haven’t changed since the first day of the pandemic and it didn’t stop omicron from sweeping through the state’s educational system. It’s not going to stop the next wave of COVID either.
The governor is now at a crossroads but doesn’t want to recognize it. He needs to immediately cede his authoritarian takeover back to the duly elected governing bodies of the senate and assembly and he needs to do it now. The governor is singlehandedly ruining the state and with his latest threat to mandate booster shots that don’t stop the current dominant variant of the virus.
He continues to force children to wear face masks despite little evidence to show that 10-year-olds wearing neck gaiters and designer cloth masks are going to stop any viruses. The only thing Phil Murphy has been good at is lying to the people of New Jersey and causing distress in the local communities. New Jersey, by constitution is a home rule state and since the pandemic began, the governor is doing everything in his power to usurp the right of local health boards, municipalities and school districts.
Nobody elected Phil Murphy to be emperor, albeit with no clothes. They elected him to be governor, in accordance with the constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.
As the former U.S. President George W. Bush once so eloquently said, “Fool me once, shame on me, Fool me twice, you can’t be fooled again.”