Massachusetts vaccine mandate debacle is another Charlie Baker special

This epic mishandling of the vaccine mandate for state workers is classic Gov. Charlie Baker – a toxic combination of overweening arrogance and breathtaking incompetence.

First, state employees had to get jabbed by today, or they were gone, or at least had to start using vacation/sick time if they wanted to keep getting paid. That’s what the “COVID-19 Response Team” told the State Police anyway.

“Employees who… have not received a response by Oct. 17 will be required to use accrued leave time until a response is rendered.”

In other words, you’re suspended.

But Friday morning, the State Police did a 180 and issued a “CORRECTION” for everyone seeking an exemption.

“You may continue to work until a decision has been rendered.”

In other words, never mind!

Naturally, confusion ensued – it goes with the territory if you work for the bust-out governor Dementia Joe Biden calls “Charlie Parker.”

So by mid-afternoon, another missive was sent out, this time by a $177,760-a-year hack from “Human Resources Division” named Jeffrey McCue, who got his job after a nationwide search – and his two $500 checks to Charlie Parker cleared the bank.

To make sure everyone got the message that the dithering idiot in the Corner Office had flip-flopped yet again, payroll patriot McCue put his message in boldface:

“Unless expressly directed not to report to work by your manager or Agency Head, all Executive Branch employees should report for work on their regularly scheduled shift on Oct. 18, 2021.”

In other words, bluff called. At least for the time being, Charlie Parker has folded.

Like everything else in Charlie Parker-world, this has been a total bleep show from the beginning.

Next, let’s visit the Department of Correction – specifically, the prison guards, whose union has in the past endorsed Parker and his lieutenant governor, Karyn “Pay to Play” Polito.

Initially the guards seeking a medical or religious exemption from the jab had to apply to a female manager, who had sole discretion to grant them. Apparently she was handing them out routinely until she suddenly vanished from DOC headquarters in Milford. 

After her disappearance, all her exemptions were suddenly rescinded – “disgraceful,” the union said in a memo to its members Friday night, “nothing short of a scandal.”

Let’s let the guards explain what Parker and Polito did after reversing all the exemptions:

“Not holding interviews at all for previous approvals and subsequent denials, not having a process for appeal, not even a signature indicating who ultimately made such important decisions and so on are appalling.”

How appalling is it? Well, here’s the (unsigned) letter one guard received Wednesday telling him his exemption had been “issued in error,” and that a “Secretariat-level panel” had decided to rescind his exemption after “a careful examination of the reasons you provided.”

The following is a direct quote:

“You represented that your objection was based on fetal cells being used in the production of the vaccine. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines did not use fetal cells in their production and are therefore their use would not be consistent with your stated religious belief.”

Huh? First of all, what’s that word “are” doing in that sentence? I guess the person who forgot to sign the letter also forgot to proof-read it.

But more significantly, if the use would not be “consistent” with the guard’s religion, then shouldn’t he be approved for the exemption? Are the DOC hacks so stupid they don’t know the difference between “consistent” and “inconsistent?”

Finally, didn’t the anonymous Parker-Polito DOC hack say fetal cells weren’t used, before he said they were used?

Remember, this illiterate screed is not some silly invitation to Polito’s annual summer hackfest at the Scandinavian AC in Shrewsbury. This is a formal notice to a CO essentially telling him he’s fired if he doesn’t do what he’s told. 

So much for their “careful examination?”

As the union said in the Friday-night message to the guards:

“You may be asking how a public safety crisis has been created in order to solve a problem that does not exist in the state prison system.”

Or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter. But let’s stick to the prisons. On Friday the union asked the administration how many inmates (who by the way are not required to get the shot) are sick.

“ZERO inmates in the state prison system have Covid or are symptomatic for Covid.”

The union added: “Firing you is no way to thank vital first responders once hailed as heroes by this same administration.”

Meanwhile, the state police sergeant who took the jab and immediately fell ill remains in the intensive-care unit at the Brigham. Too bad the “CORRECTION” memo didn’t go out before he was placed in a medically-induced coma.

His friends have now set up a Go-Fund-Me page for his wife and two children. He has 19 years on the job.

By the way, like the hacks in the DOC, the State Police also have developed a severe allergy to signing these Orwellian documents. Everything out of Framingham headquarters is attributed to the “COVID-19 Response Team.”

Or as the troopers on the road call it, “The Ministry of Truth.”

It almost makes you wonder, if Parker-Polito’s forced vaccinations are such a wonderful idea, then why is no one willing to take official credit for ordering them?

You’d almost think the hacks are worried about legal ramifications down the road, and they don’t want to leave a paper trail for civil litigation involving, say, wrongful deaths.

One final point: the guards’ union was turned down in their request for a preliminary injunction by federal judge Timothy Hillman. Would you care to guess if Judge Hillman, in addition to his $175,000-a-year federal salary, also collects a state pension from Charlie Parker?

Only one guess. The answer is, Judge Hillman has 88,952 reasons every year to adore the worst governor in state history, and all of them have George Washington’s picture on them.

As always, in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.