I want to accuse her of defying the CDC guidance here but I’m no longer sure what the CDC guidance is. The vaccinated should mask up with Delta around, but even outdoors? Or not outdoors?

What about if you’re outdoors in a crowd, as she is in the clip below?

We’re all feeling our way forward, making it up as we go along thanks to our crack public health bureaucracy.

But no matter what the guidance is, she and Ed Markey must be violating it since they have their masks on and then off in the same setting. Either they’re not putting anyone at risk by being unmasked but feel obliged to feign precautions which they’re not actually taking once the cameras are off or they are putting others at risk by being unmasked around them in close quarters, even outdoors. Security theater or recklessness: Choose one.

AOC masks up for a photo-op, then removes it afterwards. pic.twitter.com/JPrnINLkyl

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 4, 2021

The most you can say of them is that they’re modeling “good behavior” for the public, except we don’t know if masking under the circumstances actually is good. The unvaccinated might see the photo of the two Democrats masked and conclude that if they’re still at risk, in the open air, even after vaccination then there’s no point in getting the shot. Masked if you do, masked if you don’t. Right, Marco?

Stop with the mask fetish

If you want to wear a mask as a courtesy to those around you or because you are in no mood to get even a little sick go ahead

If you want your kids to mask in school that’s your right

But we aren’t going to mask our way out of this pic.twitter.com/vrRIt4hZ0p

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 4, 2021

The reason for this assembly on the Capitol steps yesterday was the ongoing leftist protest to extend the moratorium on evictions, which Biden and the CDC finally capitulated on in the most flagrantly illegal way possible. SCOTUS has already ruled that the CDC can’t unilaterally extend the moratorium past July; if that’s going to happen, it has to come from Congress. But congressional Democrats don’t want a barroom brawl between their socialist wing and their purple-district centrists over whether landlords have a right to control, uh, their own property. So progressives put the pressure on Biden to find a solution, and he did — a frivolous lawsuit aimed at tying the matter up in court for awhile, a de facto extension of the moratorium via dilatory legal proceedings.

Philip Klein is right. There should be consequences.

President Biden, through the CDC, on Tuesday took the extraordinary action of violating his oath of office by reinstating a moratorium on evictions even though he knows it’s unconstitutional. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans stand ready to hand Biden the biggest victory of his presidency by delivering him the votes he needs to get his domestic agenda across the finish line. They should be doing the opposite. In response to Biden’s power grab, they should refuse to do business with him. They should shut down the Senate…

Republicans have remained largely silent on Biden’s brazen abuse of his constitutional oath, perhaps out of fear that the eviction moratorium may be popular. This is a gutless move that represents an abdication of their own responsibility to defend the Constitution and assert the authority of the legislative branch. It’s time for them to stop playing footsie with this lawless administration and start fighting back.

Charles Cooke goes so far as to argue that Americans should ignore the moratorium extension since it’ll be deemed unconstitutional once it finally works its way back up to SCOTUS. Granted, the outcome of the coming legal challenge is unusually certain for a high-stakes political dispute — Biden himself allowed yesterday that the extension is likely unconstitutional — but I’m leery of mainstreaming the ethic of mass civil disobedience in an age when everyone seems to operate on their own set of facts. What I’d prefer instead is to see a complaint filed today against the moratorium and a federal district court enjoin it immediately from coast to coast. The four criteria for granting an injunction point towards victory for America’s landlords:

(1) the plaintiff’s likelihood of prevailing on the merits;
(2) a showing of irreparable injury to plaintiff if relief is not granted;
(3) whether the balance of equities favors the plaintiff;
(4) the public interest.

Landlords are assured of prevailing on the merits before SCOTUS and they’ve clearly suffered irreparable injury by having lost control of their property for the past 18 months, especially in cases where they’re not receiving rent. Left and right can debate who’ll suffer more, tenants or landlords, depending upon whether the moratorium ends or continues, and whether the public interest is better served by prohibiting or allowing evictions while Delta continues to rage. But there are strong pro-landlord cases to be made on the latter two points — the rental market is being massively disrupted, landlords are losing financial opportunities by having their rights to their land frozen — while the pro-landlord case on the first two is unbeatable. Grant an injunction this instant and show Biden that his garbage lawless logic won’t last a day in court.