What Is The Relationship Between These Two Stories?

On January 18th, Reuters posted an article reporting that President Biden will extend the U.S. national emergency declared in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The national emergency would have expired on March 1.

The article reports:

The emergency would have been automatically terminated unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the president sent a notice to the Congress stating it is to continue beyond the anniversary date.

Biden’s step to extend the emergency comes even as a slew of local leaders in the United States are dialing back pandemic restrictions as the Omicron wave ebbs. read more

The governors of New York and Massachusetts announced last week that they would end certain mask mandates in their states, following similar moves by New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Delaware and Oregon.

U.S. health officials said earlier this week they were preparing for the next phase of the pandemic as Omicron-related cases decline.

On Friday, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Joe Biden informed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that he intends to extend the federal National Emergency declaration beyond its termination date in March. [STATUTE HERE]

By statute the State of a National Emergency expires one year after initial declaration. That meant the COVID National Emergency declaration was scheduled to end March 1st.  However, the statute allows the extension if the executive office informs the legislative branch within the 90-day window prior to expiration.

Biden informed Nancy Pelosi today of his intent to extend the National Emergency.  Both the House and Senate will now have to schedule a vote to support the extension [SEE HERE]:

It is encouraging to me that Congress has to vote on the extension. It is possible that the emergency declaration will be used against any American truckers protesting vaccine mandates (as in Canada), but it is also possible that the declaration will be used to justify extensive mail in voting in the mid-term election.

Townhall reported the following on Wednesday:

Weeks ahead of the state’s March 1 primary, local election officials in Texas are sending mail-in ballots back to thousands of voters who had turned them in, citing issues with ID requirements created by the state’s controversial new voting law.

In Harris County — Texas’ largest county, which is home to Houston — election officials said they’d received 6,548 mail-in ballots as of Saturday and had returned almost 2,500 — nearly 38% — for correction because of an incorrect ID.

That’s a far higher rejection rate than is typical.

[…]

Voting for the March 1 primary that is currently underway in Texas is the first big election held in the state since Senate Bill 1, a GOP-backed law that introduced sweeping changes to the Texas election code, went into effect.

[…]

Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, says a Texas voter who is already registered can update their registration online — even after the registration deadline — on a new website the state created to make sure it has all the IDs the voter uses.

“You are not changing anything by adding information to your voter registration record, you are just making it more complete,” he says. “So that doesn’t start the clock over in terms of whether or not you were registered by the deadline for the March primary.”

Now stop and think about what is happening in Texas for a moment. Texas has put in place laws that will help protect the integrity of mail-in ballots. Many other states have not. If America is in a state of emergency, can that state of emergency be used to justify universal mail-in ballots? If you were a Democrat looking at the polls, would you be looking for a way to win?

On April 10, 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported:

‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.

Concerns about vote-buying have a long history in the U.S. They helped drive the move to the secret ballot, which U.S. states adopted between 1888 and 1950. Secret ballots made it harder for vote buyers to monitor which candidates sellers actually voted for. Vote-buying had been pervasive; my research with Larry Kenny at the University of Florida has found that voter turnout fell by about 8% to 12% after states adopted the secret ballot.

Please follow the links to all the articles mentioned to get the complete picture.

 

Tyranny Expands When It Is Not Stopped

I have no idea what the eventual fate of the protesting truck drivers in Canada will be. I can only hope that some law enforcement and some banks will not comply with the illegal emergency actions that are planned. I can only hope.

On Wednesday, The Conservative Review posted an article about some of the extreme actions that government is taking.

The article reports:

Canadian parents who bring their children to demonstrations the government considers to be “unlawful” can now face thousands of dollars in fines or jail time, CBC News reported.

The new power reportedly comes after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act this week, granting itself exceptional measures to address the country’s ongoing Freedom Convoy trucker protests. It marked the first time the act has been invoked since its passage in 1988.

As has been said by people much smarter than I, this is not the purpose of the Emergencies Act. The Act was not designed simply to quell views opposed to the ruling class.

The article concludes:

In a notice issued Wednesday, Ottowa police told protesters, “You must leave the area now. Anyone blocking streets, or assisting others in the blocking streets, are committing a criminal offence and you may be arrested.”

“You must immediately cease further unlawful activity or you will face charges,” the notice added.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino similarly commented, “To those who may be thinking to come to Ottawa this weekend — don’t. At best, the residents of the city have made it clear that this is not the time. And at worst, you may be tying yourself to dangerous criminal activity.”

While announcing the invocation of the Emergencies Act on Monday, Trudeau noted that the military would not be called in to disperse the crowds but said the nation’s police would be granted greater power to impose fines and imprisonment on those engaging in “illegal and dangerous activities.”

“This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs, and restoring confidence in our institutions,” he said.

The protesters are not the ones undermining confidence in Canada’s institutions–the runaway tyranny of the government is doing that.

Clamping Down On The Protests

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to deploy the “Emergencies Act” on Monday, which would allow him to take additional steps to quell the Freedom Convoy protests, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC).

The act has never been used before, CBC reported. The act defines a national emergency as “an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it or (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada.”

Under the act, Trudeau is given the authority “to take special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times.”

The Prime Minister is expected to tell lawmakers of his decision some time on Monday.

The article continues:

Jack Lindsay, an associate professor in the applied disaster and emergency studies department at Brandon University in Manitoba, told CBC that the government must first prove the protest is a national emergency.

“[Trudeau is] basically going to be arguing that these truckers are basically creating a threat to the security of Canada,” Lindsay reportedly said, noting the government is not allowed to take control of police forces.

I don’t know much about Canadian politics, but I don’t see this as a positive move for Prime Minister Trudeau. The truckers have won the hearts of Canadians and Americans, and to end the protest without resolving the underlying issues is probably not a wise move.

Stay tuned.