Tag: emergency powers

Pakistan Declares State of Emergency, Arrests Leaders of Former PM Imran Khan’s Party

Pakistan on Monday declared a state of emergency in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the stronghold of former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI party, and suspended the PTI-dominated government.

The central government claimed these drastic measures were necessary because provincial leaders were not doing enough to contain an Islamist insurgency leaking over the border from neighboring Afghanistan.

PTI officials dismissed the official government explanation as merely an excuse to arrest opposition leaders and prevent Khan supporters from marching on Islamabad.

Khan, 74, was ejected from the prime minister’s office in 2022 by a vote of no confidence and has been jailed since 2023 on numerous corruption charges – all of which his supporters denounce as political fabrications created by the administration of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to prevent Khan from making a political comeback.

PTI members have been rallying in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for days to prepare for the march on Islamabad, while government forces in the Pakistani capital have been blocking off roads and bracing for a siege.

Sharif asked PTI to postpone the march, due to the ongoing terrorist threat from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban – a violent insurgency that wants to overthrow Pakistan’s secular government and replace it with an Islamist caliphate modeled on the Afghan Taliban.

Just as the marchers were preparing to embark from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for their week-long journey to Islamabad, President Asif Ali Zardari declared a state of emergency in the province and suspended the government. Zardari’s office said he signed the orders after the “failure of negotiations” between provincial representatives and emissaries from Islamabad.

Police arrested several high-ranking PTI members, including the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a Khan ally named Sohail Afridi. The police said some would only be detained temporarily, while others could face serious criminal charges. India’s The Hindu quoted two anonymous Pakistani police officials who said a total of 278 PTI members were detained.

The Hindu also said schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were closed on Monday, and “major disruptions to Internet connectivity” were detected in the province.

Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said a provincial governor would be appointed for at least six months, or until the state of emergency is lifted.

PTI leaders and spokesmen sneered at Zardari’s order as an “ambush on democracy” and “a coup disguised as an emergency.”

The provincial governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, posted a video message saying that residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would welcome President Zardari’s order, because they want “peace, stability, development and prosperity rather than unrest and insecurity.”

Kundi urged the people of the province to “refrain from violating the law, inciting violence or engaging in rioting.”

Keep reading

‘We Already Fought This Battle’: After Public Outcry, Pennsylvania Health Department Will Rethink Plan to Expand Powers

Following a wave of public opposition — including over 10,000 public comments — the Pennsylvania Department of Health has withdrawn its controversial proposal to grant itself substantially expanded powers during disease outbreaks.

The department had sought sweeping changes to Pennsylvania’s disease control regulations that would have allowed state health officials to impose stringent public health measures during outbreaks — including mandating masks, increasing vaccine surveillance and giving health officials access to students without their parents’ consent.

Commenting on the public response, state Sen. Doug Mastriano said in a statement:

“That is an extraordinary response, and a victory for the people of Pennsylvania. The citizens read what the government was proposing, remembered what happened during COVID-19 and spoke out, because we already fought this battle.”

Rather than proposing a bill and debating it in the General Assembly, the health department sought expanded powers by rewriting its regulations, typically a bureaucratic function.

But after the department submitted the proposal to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and opened it for public comment, more than 10,000 people and organizations submitted comments, the majority opposing the changes, according to Mastriano.

Among those who opposed the changes was a group of state senators who fired off a 40-page letter detailing their objections.

Late last week, the department said it would rewrite and resubmit the proposed changes at a future date.

Keep reading

When Everything Becomes a National Security Threat

“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.” ~ Justice Hugo Black, New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

“National security” has become the government’s all-purpose permission slip to behave badly.

They have become the magic words that can make constitutional restraints disappear – especially when the courts defer to claims of national security. Courts have historically been reluctant to second-guess the executive branch when government officials invoke military necessity, classified information, foreign affairs or national security.

Given the judiciary’s longstanding reluctance to second-guess presidential power grabs involving national security, the national-security state has repeatedly used that deference to expand both its own reach and the power of the presidency.

Call something a matter of national security and the normal rules start disappearing: Courts defer. Congress retreats. Secrecy expands. Executive power grows.

“National security” has been used as the justification for surveillance, secret courts, classification, warrantless spying, military intervention, watchlists, detention, border searches, censorship claims and the concealment of government misconduct.

That game is hardly new.

Nixon played it. Bush played it. Obama played it. Biden played it.

Trump may not have invented the national-security dodge, but he has taken it to increasingly absurd extremes.

Under Trump 2.0, almost everything gets branded a matter of national security in order for the president to sidestep as many parts of the Constitution as he finds inconvenient.

At one point, the government even invoked national security to justify proposed tariffs on trumpets, trombones and tubas because the instruments depend on foreign copper alloys.

This would almost be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

Trump wants greater control over the U.S economy? Declare a national emergency and seize the power to levy tariffs in the name of national security.

Trump is disgruntled over relations with Canada? Declare a national security threat and claim executive authority to levy tariffs without going through Congress.

Trump wants to build a lavish ballroom? Stick a bunker below it and a droneport on top, and call it national security.

Trump wants to erect a massive ceremonial arch? Turn it into a military installation, complete with drones, snipers and ammunition, and chalk it up to national security.

Trump doesn’t like unfavorable press coverage? Ban reporters from the White House and characterize the press as a national-security threat.

This is not merely another Trump deflection.

It is the logical culmination of decades spent allowing presidents of both parties to invoke national security whenever they want more power, more secrecy and less accountability.

Trump is demonstrating just how much damage can be done once a president decides that virtually anything he wants can be recast as necessary for national security.

Consider how far down the road we have already traveled under the Trump administration.

Tariffs on allies have been justified as national security. Annexing Greenland has been characterized as vital to national security. Offshore wind projects have been halted on national-security grounds.

Coal plants have been kept operating longer in the name of national security.

Artificial-intelligence infrastructure and massive data centers have been elevated to matters of national security.

Even federal workers’ collective-bargaining protections have been stripped away after agencies were classified as performing national-security work.

Keep reading

COVID Response: Do We Really Want To Go Back To That?

COVID changed the way I hear the word “temporary.”

Before 2020, ‘temporary’ was temporary. Something happened, you dealt with it, and eventually you went back to living your life.

Then came COVID.

Most of us remember the rest. The empty streets. The closed businesses. The masks. The six-foot circles on the floor. Schools closed, churches restricted, nursing homes became nearly impossible to visit, and governments suddenly had an extraordinary amount to say about what ordinary Americans could and could not do.

I don’t need to make a list of everything that happened. You lived through it.

So did I.

What interests me now isn’t relitigating every lockdown decision or deciding which governor got which decision right. It is what the whole experience taught us about government power.

We learned that “temporary” can become a remarkably elastic word.

We also learned how quickly people will surrender ordinary freedoms when the circumstances are frightening enough.

I understood the fear. I had elderly people in my family, and I wanted to protect them. That’s why I eventually took the COVID shot.

I don’t regret doing it for them.

But I remember watching government move from telling us to be careful to telling us what we could do. At one point, OSHA tried to impose a vaccine-or-test requirement on businesses with 100 or more employees, covering roughly 84 million workers. The Supreme Court stopped it.

That was the moment the issue became especially clear to me.

This wasn’t simply about where I could go anymore. Government was reaching into the relationship between an employee and an employer.

That’s a lot of power.

And once you’ve seen government exercise that kind of power, you don’t forget it.

The consequences weren’t confined to the moment, either. Children lost months of schooling. Businesses that had taken years to build disappeared. Families missed funerals and time with dying relatives. Some of those losses can’t be measured by a statistic because there isn’t a statistic for a grandmother who couldn’t hug her grandchild.

NWEA’s 2023-24 analysis found that students still needed the equivalent of 4.8 additional months of schooling in reading and 4.3 months in math to reach pre-COVID achievement levels.

Those are the numbers.

Keep reading

Trump Admin Weighs Emergency Powers To Boost Refining As Diesel Tops $6

With national average diesel prices above $6 a gallon and regular gasoline firmly above $4.20, the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to deploy every available policy tool to contain fuel costs ahead of the midterm elections. Disruptions tied to the Russia-Ukraine war and turmoil in the Gulf are intensifying the global refining super squeeze.

Reuters reports late Friday afternoon that the Trump administration is considering whether to use the Defense Production Act to expand U.S. oil refining capacity as the Iran conflict drives up fuel prices.

According to the report:

The proposal to use the act came up during a recent meeting between President Donald Trump and nearly a dozen U.S. refiners, where White House officials sought to determine how federal support could best be used to add capacity, the sources said. No final decisions were made, and participants left the meeting with the expectation that the conversations would continue, according to the sources.

However, expanding refining capacity comes as U.S. refineries are already operating near their limits. The latest data shows that utilization has topped 98%. 

The discussions follow Trump’s April decision authorizing support for domestic petroleum production, refining and logistics under the Defense Production Act. That directive identified financing constraints, long construction timelines, permitting delays and supply-chain limitations as obstacles to expanding capacity.

“America’s refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy. Expanding that capacity is a top priority for the President and his energy team, who are evaluating concrete options to increase our refining capacity through regulatory reform, faster permitting, and additional investment,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, told the outlet.

Reuters pointed out: 

A proposed new refinery in Brownsville, Texas, has emerged as a test case for Trump’s call to expand U.S. refining capacity. It was unclear whether the project would receive any Defense Production Act funding. 

America First Refining plans to build a 168,000-barrel-per-day facility at the Port of Brownsville, which Trump announced in March as the first new U.S. refinery in nearly 50 years. ⁠The project is backed by India’s Reliance Industries, which has agreed to a 20-year deal to buy the refinery’s output.

Keep reading

Trump Declares National Emergency Over Chinese Equipment Inside America’s AI Data Centers

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Wednesday over Chinese-made equipment in the core of America’s AI data centers. The numbers behind his declaration are stunning.

In a move that threatens to rip apart the global supply chain for data center hardware, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency in order to block the importation of Chinese equipment buried deep inside America’s AI infrastructure. The new executive order signed by Trump last week gives the Department of Energy the authority to block or to impose conditions on transactions involving foreign-made equipment in the bulk-power system as well as in data center construction.

China’s share of other subcategories of transformers and switchgear, used to power the facility, ranges around 30 percent, according to Yury Dvorkin, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. For batteries specifically imported for data centers, the Chinese share is over 40 percent. And then there are the raw materials that Chinese suppliers control at the upstream stages of production — copper, electrical steel, and battery cathode materials, to name a few.

But it’s not just the substation transformers that the AI infrastructure buildout is increasingly dependent on Chinese imports for, according to Ben Boucher, senior supply chain analyst at Wood Mackenzie. He highlights a few key areas of supply chain exposure that the AI buildout of data centers is dependent on. “And if you can’t bring those in, you can’t build out the AI infrastructure of the data centers,” he said.

China has a near two-thirds share of global optical transceiver units in revenue terms, led by the market of two major domestic firms, Zhongji Innolight and Eoptolink, which together account for over 50 percent of data center optical transceiver markets — other Chinese companies taking up the remainder.

Keep reading

Trump Broadens Interior’s Role In National Energy Emergencies

President Donald Trump expanded the number of Cabinet officials who can independently exercise emergency powers involving the nation’s energy supplies for the second time in six months.

An executive order issued Sept. 8 gives the interior secretary authority under the Defense Production Act that had previously rested largely with the energy secretary. Trump added the energy secretary alongside the commerce secretary under a similar provision in March.

Before March, the commerce secretary held authority under one provision intended to maximize energy supplies. Trump’s action Tuesday leaves the three officials independently authorized to act on energy-related matters under the Defense Production Act.

The Defense Production Act, created five years after the end of World War II, allows the president to tell private companies to give federal contracts priority over private-sector customers. It also allows the president to provide financial incentives to increase the supply of materials and technologies considered vital to national defense. Congress has reauthorized the law more than 50 times since its enactment in 1950.

The Interior Department oversees federal lands and waters containing significant energy and mineral resources. Its agencies administer onshore oil and gas leasing and production, while the interior secretary approves the five-year schedule for offshore oil and gas lease sales. The department’s energy portfolio also includes coal, critical minerals, geothermal energy, and wind and solar development on public lands.

The new order gives the interior and energy secretaries independent authority to require that certain energy-related contracts receive priority and to allocate energy resources when necessary to support national defense.

The order also establishes a process for resolving disagreements between the two departments. Energy-related disputes between the interior and energy secretaries will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council. Disputes involving national defense infrastructure or military operations will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council and the National Security Council while coordinating with the Department of War.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former North Dakota governor, also chairs the White House National Energy Dominance Council. In March, Burgum went to Venezuela to meet with leader Delcy Rodriguez to discuss investments and expansion of the country’s natural resources.

Nearly six months later, Trump announced a deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels from Venezuela’s oil reserves. Trump said the deal was a partnership of private businesses and was brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth while working with Rodriguez.

Keep reading

America After 9/11: 25 Years of Fear, War, Surveillance, and Permanent Emergency

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in  –  and the West in general  –  into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden (October 2001)

“GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.” – President Donald Trump (September 2026)

Days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, President Trump flooded his Truth Social account with AI-generated fantasies of himself commanding armies of giant, red-eyed robots.

In one, Trump strides through a darkened Washington surrounded by robotic soldiers beneath the words, “THEY WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.” Another declares, “THEY WILL DREAM OF US FOREVER.” A third depicts Trump seated on a mechanical throne, surrounded by an army of robots and the presidential seal, beneath the warning: “GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.”

Twenty-five years after 9/11, one has to ask: has the nightmare ever really ended?

For a quarter-century, Americans have been governed by fear: fear of terrorists and foreign enemies, fear of domestic extremists and political opponents, fear of the next attack, the next crisis, the next emergency.

That fear has given us endless war, mass surveillance, militarized police, secret courts, indefinite detention, government watchlists, domestic military deployments and an imperial presidency armed with powers that would have been unthinkable before 9/11.

Now the man entrusted with the imperial powers of the modern-day presidency is publicly imagining himself enthroned over robotic armies, raining destruction on his enemies and promising nightmares.

The imagery may be unhinged from reality, but the powers of the presidency are not.

Neither are the questions raised by Trump’s increasingly unhinged public behavior about whether any president – especially one armed with the accumulated powers of the post-9/11 national-security state – is mentally and temperamentally fit to wield them.

That is where America’s two great anniversaries of 2026 collide.

On July 4, America celebrated 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, born from a revolt against King George III and a system in which too much power rested in the hands of one ruler. At its heart was the radical proposition that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

On September 11, we mark 25 years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, shattered the nation’s sense of security, and set in motion a massive expansion of presidential, military and national-security power.

America began by rebelling against a king.

Keep reading

Trump Declares National Emergency to Secure U.S. Power Grid From Foreign Cyber Security Threats

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Aug. 26 to secure the national power grid, citing unusual and extraordinary foreign cyber and security threats.

The order prohibits certain foreign-made bulk-power system electric equipment, including software, that poses cybersecurity or operational risks, from being purchased or installed in the United States.

“Certain foreign actors are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, and economy,” Trump said in the order.

Keep reading

Trump teases national security emergency for elections: ‘Stranger things have happened’

President Donald Trump is leaving the door open to declaring a national security emergency over the 2026 midterm elections, stating Monday that “stranger things have happened.” 

Conservative commentator and Real America’s Voice host Wayne Allyn Root made the suggestion in an interview, noting that it could be done if the Senate fails to pass the SAVE America Act when it returns from its recess next month.

The host commented that if the president does declare a national security emergency and federalize the elections, then he would get everything he wanted without needing the Senate’s assistance.

“Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump told the host abruptly. 

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act is a nationwide voter ID bill that has strong support from the Trump-aligned conservative voter base. It requires people to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and requires Americans to show ID when voting.

If the president does try to declare a national security emergency and take over the midterms, he could still be blocked by Congress through a joint resolution, according to The Hill. That joint resolution would likely require veto-proof two-thirds majorities in both chambers, according to the outlet.

Keep reading