A few more articles of interest.

https://www.joshbarro.com/p/travel-mask-rules-were-increasingly?s=r
Travel Mask Rules Were Increasingly Absurd and Ignored. Now They Are Gone.
Freedom arrives in the club lounge.

I saw a lot of posts on social media about pilots announcing mid-flight that mask rules had been lifted.1 But on my flight from Atlanta to New York, there was no announcement. Instead, while we were at the gate, the pilot made a point of walking down the aisle with no mask on, successively addressing groups of a few rows at a time to explain that our flight was likely to be very turbulent, and the seat belt sign might be on for most of the flight.

It was a nice display of normalcy. I think Delta CEO Ed Bastian is right that lifting mask rules is an important step toward re-establishing pre-COVID behavior norms where people weren’t so much trouble all the time. It’s good for people to see each other’s faces — it helps us relate to each other as people, remember that we are all human, and maybe not get into stupid-ass arguments in the airplane environments that seem to, for whatever reason, being out terrible behavior in people.

https://compactmag.com/article/alienation-at-30-000-feet
by Walter Kirn in March 2022 – in re the change in behavior aboard airplanes

These gestures and pleasantries haven’t wholly vanished, but I notice them much less often than I used to, and they stand out when I do. They seem to draw from some reservoir of cheer—or credibly simulated cheer—installed in our species by history or nature to ease our transit through crowded situations. A reservoir that may be drying up.

I have my ideas about why this is occurring. Shrinking seats, diminished leg room, and flights that are routinely overbooked by airline computers that I fear are programmed with game-theory models based on Cold War brinkmanship play only minor parts in my analysis. Yes, the captains of the aviation industry have tested customers’ psychological limits concerning personal space and so on, but this has been a long and gradual process, one we have had time to adjust to and absorb. By itself, it can’t quite account, from what I’ve seen, for the precipitous deterioration of in-flight civil society, such as it is.

The mandatory masks don’t help, of course. In less confined, less hectic settings—restaurants, stores, and such—anonymized faces don’t loom and swarm the way they do on planes, which emphasizes the latent claustrophobia. It’s hard enough while being squeezed and jostled to summon empathy for one’s fellow passengers, but when the buffer of smiles is removed—the mollifying, apologetic smiles triggered by spilled drinks and stepped-on toes—minor aggravations swell. They especially swell when authority is involved. Last month, about halfway through an endless flight which found me in a narrow middle seat between two laptop users with their trays down, the flight attendant rolled up with her drink cart. I lowered my mask to order a diet soda and was met with a wagging finger and the glare of a sternness I hadn’t faced since grade school. I tried to explain—“I wanted you to hear me”—but the attendant didn’t soften. “Put it on,” she barked. I fumblingly obeyed her and then, obliged to abase myself again, repeated my drink order through a layer of cloth. Prepare now for the joke ending:

“What?” she said.

But enough with the sour anecdotes. It’s time for my pet theory, my explanation for the outbursts —some of them rattlingly explosive—that I’ve witnessed all too often since resuming my post-pandemic travel schedule.

Obviously she’s immunocompromised, and she wears a mask when she has to be in a public place with others. I have no problem wearing a mask when I’m with her — indoors for sure, and I would wear one outdoors, too, if she asked me to, but she never has.

She understands her risks and does what she can to reduce them. What she does not do is demand that total strangers out in the world modify their behavior to accommodate her vulnerability (though of course she’s grateful if things work out that way).

I am disgusted by double-vaxed and boosted thirty-something authoritarian maskholes whose unreasonable fear and entitlement are second only to their literally willful ignorance about the low risk that COVID poses to them.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/opinions/transportation-airplanes-mask-mandate-ruling-filipovic/index.html

Bauxite said it well, above: “The issue isn’t really ‘to mask or not to mask.’ It is ‘to force my neighbor to mask or not to force my neighbor to mask.’ ”

I was about to make the same point Bauxite made, but s/he beat me to it. Bravo.

The opposite of mandatory masking is not mandatory no-masking; it’s voluntary masking-or-not (imagine!). [Couldn’t resist inserting my $0.02 worth.]

I’ve posted here before that due to my own immunosuppressant issues (as well as my advancing/advanced years), I am well advised to mask up in many situations. And I do exactly that, with N95s I ordered some time ago — once it became evident to me that most masks were of only marginal efficacy at best, and I could do without the theater.

I’d blush to think that I’m compelling others to cater to me.

I realize I may come off in public as a compliant scared-of-my-own-shadow wimp, but that’s an indignity I’ll endure.

Hopefully then SCOTUS steps in but who know what Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh will say.

These Jen Psaki quotes are from Breitbart, and presumably preceded the CDC request to the DOJ by some hours.

“I mean our focus here was seeing what power we had to preserve what we felt was in the public health interest of the country,” Psaki explained.

“For current and future health crises, we want to preserve that authority for the CDC to have in the future,” Psaki said.

So they are “preserving authority” which is entirely separate from the issue of it being an illegal or impermissible authority. (Are they suggesting that they don’t really care if it is useful on an epidemiological basis right now?) PA Cat’s quote does clearly state that it is “well within the CDC’s legal authority.” Stating it doesn’t make it so, but it is outside my range of knowledge.

Does Neo have an opinion? Is the Florida judge on solid legal ground, or is it debatable?
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I accidentally skipped over this gem from Psaki at the top of the article.

Jen Psaki defended the two-week extension of the mask mandate on planes and public transportation, arguing the CDC “felt they needed that” to examine more data about the coronavirus pandemic.

Yes, because 25 months of examining data is not enough. Also, it takes time to destroy data and cook the books.