Airlines drop mask rules after judge strikes down mandate
UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo and former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman discuss the Florida judge's ruling striking down the mask mandate for public transportation on ‘Fox News @ Night.’
Liberals on social media expressed shock and dismay after a Trump appointed federal judge struck down the federal mask mandate on airplanes that has been in place for two years.
"When I bought my tickets for me, my wife (who is pregnant), and our unvaccinated 4-year-old, I assumed you would continue to have a mask mandate," Dr. Jeremy Faust tweeted shortly after the mandate was lifted by U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Florida. "Now you cancel it and we will have to board our return flight under your new no mask required policy?! Thanks so much."
People traveling by plane during COVID 19, wearing face masks, carrying luggage in airport terminal. (iStock)
MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF AMERICANS CAN GO WITHOUT MASKS: CDC
Faust went on to accuse United Airlines of "pretty much" saying "it’s cool" if children under five years old who can’t receive the coronavirus vaccine die from the virus on airplanes.
Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding tweeted that the coronavirus pandemic is not "over" and called for a boycott of Alaska Airlines, which he suggested is an "idiot airline", until the company implements its own mask mandate.
"Sitting for several hours in a tight, enclosed space with 200 coughing, breathing, sneezing strangers?" Writer Charlotte Clymer tweeted. "Yeah, I'm gonna keep wearing my mask on flights for the foreseeable future, and that's all I have to say about that."
TUCKER CARLSON: MASK MANDATES ARE A DEBATE ABOUT POWER, NOT ABOUT SCIENCE
United Airlines was hit with a barrage of tweets from social media users upset that the company announced it would no longer require masks.
United Airlines Airbus A320 (iStock)
"I'm so frustrated," one user wrote. "We have tickets to fly this weekend, which felt like a tolerable risk only because everyone is required to wear a mask. Now we have to sit in a tube with 200 people (some of whom will certainly be + for Covid) and risk getting sick, or cancel our trip. Pissed."
Others turned their attention to Judge Mizelle, offering sharp criticism of her record and questioning her qualifications as a judge.
"Mizelle's alleged qualification for the bench?" Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern tweeted."Her clerkships with conservative judges. That was enough for Senate Republicans. Now she's issuing nationwide injunctions that affect millions of Americans' health and safety. No sane democracy would permit this system of governance."
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Travelers walk through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on April 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
"Today a federal judge called it overreach for US health officials to require masks on airplanes & other public transit, and no matter how you feel about masks, you should be really, really concerned that the Courts are effectively taking away power from the federal government," Massachusetts Democrat State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa tweeted.
"The decision by the young Trump-appointed federal judge ending the mask mandate in travel shows the federal judiciary has turned into the Senate," CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted. "Democratic and Republican judges live in different worlds and rule differently."
Judge Mizelle determined in her ruling that the mask mandate violated the Administrative Procedure Act by being outside the scope of the CDC's authority, was "arbitrary" and "capricious" and not going through the required notice and comment period for federal rulemaking.
Following the ruling, both Amtrak and Uber announced they would also be lifting their mask mandates.
The White House referred to the ruling as "disappointing" and urged Americans to continue wearing masks on mass transit.
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