Tag: emergency powers

Arizona Rejects Restrictions on Governor’s Emergency Powers

Arizonans voted against Proposition 135, a ballot measure that would have enshrined an “Emergency Declarations Amendment” to the constitution limiting the ability of their governor to extend emergency declarations among others. 56.8 percent of Arizona voters went against the proposition, with 68 percent of the vote counted as of press time.

Two years ago, Governor Doug Ducey signed a similar bill limiting the duration of a state of emergency to 30-day increments, which are eligible for extensions up to 120 days without the legislature’s approval. Proposition 135 would have set a hard cap of 30 days for states of emergency and prohibited the governor from extending them without approval from state lawmakers. Absent a decision from the state legislature, the declared state of emergency would automatically end after the allotted 30 days.

Under the ballot measure, certain types of emergencies—like a state of war, fire, and floods—would not be subject to the 30-day limit. Additionally, the legislature would have had the authority to alter or limit the governor’s powers when lawmakers extend an emergency declaration.

Apart from the amendment’s effects on emergency declarations, it also required the governor to call a special session upon the petition of “at least one-third of each house of the legislature,” according to the ballot’s language. Under current law, two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers must vote in favor of a special session to force the governor to call one. 

Republican lawmakers holding majorities in both chambers voted in 2023 for the amendment to be included on the 2024 ballot; no Democrats voted to include the ballot measure. The bill’s sponsor, state representative Joseph Chaplik (R–Scottsdale), cited the 700-day plus COVID-19 emergency order as a key reason for his support of the measure, according to The Arizona Republic. Rep. Chaplik told The Arizona Republic that the proposition would have allowed special sessions to occur immediately following a governor’s “abuses [of] their emergency power.”

Opponents of Proposition 135 cited concerns over the state’s ability to respond to emergencies. Requiring legislative approval might have slowed down the resources that states of emergency are meant to help allocate. The allocation of state resources, temporary suspension of regulations, enhanced information gathering, and speedy authorization of stricter public safety measures are all reasons states of emergency are declared.  

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Policy Founded on Distorted Evidence

How can decision-makers justify promoting the mammoth undertaking of annual influenza vaccination when the best-quality evidence base is nearly empty?

This was the first question we left you with in the previous post.

In 2008, we examined several policy documents written by influential organisations from WHO, the UK, the US, Germany, Australia, and Canada. The power brokers of influenza prevention created compelling policy arguments for vaccination. For example, the WHO estimated that “vaccination of the elderly reduced the risk of serious complications or death by 70-85%.” What they didn’t point out was that this estimate was based on single studies. In the US, reductions in cases, admissions, and mortality of grandma were central arguments for extending vaccination to healthy children aged 6-23 months.

Therefore, we asked simple questions like who wrote the policy documents, whether there was a methods chapter explaining how the bigwigs reached their conclusions, and whether they had done some quality assessment of the studies or the data. 

We were persistent and looked inside some of these documents. All policy documents contained misquotes, selective citation of text or results, factual mistakes in reporting either estimates of effect or the authors’ conclusions, inconsistent logic, and contradictions.

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The Trojan Horse of “Public Health”

At the recent Mises Institute Supporters Summit in Hilton Head, South Carolina Tom Woods made some flattering comments about Yours Truly regarding my 2000 book coauthored with James T. Bennett entitled
From Pathology to Politics: Public Health in America (Transaction Publishers).  That’s the year 2000, not 2020.  Tom’s comment was the result of his discovery that my coauthor and I had smoked out the dishonesty and left-wing political gimmickry of the “public health establishment” nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The “public health” movement was created shortly after the Civil War with the creation of state and local government “health departments” that concentrated on sanitation issues, disease research, enforcing quarantines, inoculations, controlling mosquitoes, waste disposal, swamp drainage, immunizations, and attempting to control communicable diseases in general.  The American Public Health Association (APHA) was founded in 1872 as a trade association for public health professionals.  It is almost shocking today to read about how post Civil War cities in America were full of such things as pig pens, cesspools, privy vaults, and manure piles!

For the first several decades of its existence the presidents of the APHA were all people with scientific training – surgeons, medical statisticians, chemists, sanitarians, experts in bacteriology, hygiene, anatomy, and even botany.  Great progress was made in controlling diseases and eradicating some of them, like Yellow Fever, and improving mortality rates.  Economic growth surely played an important role as well, enabling Americans to attain better nutrition and living standards in general.

By the 1950s the dire problems that existed in the post-war years had pretty much disappeared, confronting the public health establishment with a major dilemma: With its mission essentially accomplished, how would it continue to justify its existence and its tax-funded support?

Lyndon Johnson’s “great society” explosion of welfare state spending during the 1960s provided the answer.  The federal government’s “Kerner Report” of 1968 on the “root causes” of poverty was fully embraced by the APHA.  In doing so the public health establishment changed its focus entirely from controlling disease to creating a healthy society through welfare statism.  The goal was no longer enhancing individual health but “curing” society’s ills.  That’s where the big tax money was.  Fewer and fewer medical and health professionals were among “public health” professionals, with more and more lobbyists, political activists, sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists.  The public health establishment began crusading for increased welfare payments, a guaranteed annual income “for all Americans,” government housing subsidies, racial hiring quotas, and school busing.

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Massachusetts Governor Uses Emergency Powers To Fast-Track Sweeping Gun-Control Law

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has signed an emergency preamble to the state’s sweeping gun control bill, fast-tracking its implementation and halting an ongoing effort by gun rights activists to delay its effects.

The law, H.4885, was originally scheduled to take effect on Oct. 23, or 90 days after Healey signed the bill in July, but her decision to proceed with signing the emergency preamble means it goes into effect immediately.

Under Massachusetts law, governors have the authority to issue an emergency preamble to expedite legislation when “the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety, or convenience” is deemed necessary.

The law’s expedited enactment was praised by gun control groups but sharply criticized by gun rights advocates, who had hoped to gather enough signatures to delay its implementation until a potential 2026 referendum.

H.4885 expands Massachusetts’ already strict gun regulations, in part as a response to the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which affirmed an individual’s right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

The expedited law includes provisions banning untraceable “ghost guns,” expanding restrictions on “assault-style” firearms and large-capacity magazines, and tightening the state’s “red flag” rules. It also mandates that firearm license applicants pass a standardized safety exam and complete live-fire training, while also providing mental health information to local licensing authorities.

“This gun safety law bans ghost guns, strengthens the Extreme Risk Protection Order statute to keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others, and invests in violence prevention programs. It is important that these measures go into effect without delay,” Healey said in an Oct. 2 statement to media outlets.

The governor’s decision to fast-track the law has drawn swift condemnation from gun rights organizations. Tody Leary, owner of Cape Cod Gun Works and a leader of the grassroots Civil Rights Coalition, sharply criticized the move, accusing Healey of bypassing the democratic process.

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California Governor Unveils Emergency Rules To Ban Hemp Products With Any ‘Detectable Amount’ Of THC

Six years after Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp at the federal level, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is attempting to rein in the proliferation of products that contain intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids. While many support the aims of the proposal, some stakeholders contend it could ultimately limit access to federally legal CBD products.

Newsom announced new emergency regulations on Friday that would outlaw hemp products with any “detectable amount of total THC.” Hemp products that don’t have THC would be further limited to five servings per package, and sales would be restricted to adults 21 and older.

The proposal comes less than a month after the state legislature effectively killed a governor-backed bill that would have imposed somewhat similar restrictions on intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids.

Newsom said in a press conference that he expects the new rules to take effect after a “very short” administrative process.

Standing next to a table piled with largely unregulated products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids, including beverages and gummies, Newsom expressed disgust that they’re now widely sold at grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores. Hemp-derived THC-infused sparkling water, he lamented, can be found—including by minors—alongside more benign products like La Croix.

“It’s a disgrace and it’s a shame,” the governor said, “and the industry bears full responsibility for not policing itself, for the proliferation of these intoxicating products that are hurting our children.”

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The Trajectory of Emergency Lands on Price Controls

The US’s serious bout of inflation – mirrored in many countries in the world – was set in motion in the first week of March 2020, like much of the rest of our ongoing emergency. This was a fortnight before the lockdowns were announced, indicating that much was going on behind the scenes. The Federal Reserve turned on a dime to provide enormous liquidity to the system, just days following the CDC’s briefing of the national press of coming lockdowns, about which the Trump administration seemed then to know next to nothing. 

The fiscal and monetary fun lasted only so long. Following the inauguration of the new president, the first round of bills started coming due, and that has continued until the present, rapidly wiping out the value of the stimulus payments that seemed to have made everyone suddenly rich without working. 

Only after two years and after some 10 months of resulting declines in purchasing power, along with supply chain breakages that left so many goods in shortage, did the Fed start to worry and raise interest rates from zero percent. That was presumably designed to sponge up the excess liquidity that had been injected directly to the veins of economic life. The Fed’s action slowed but did not end what they had unleashed to deal with the virus that was widely advertised as universally deadly even though every specialist knew otherwise. 

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WHO declares $Moneypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and plans to roll out two vaccines

The claim is that 3.7% of cases result in death—which is higher than what was claimed for COVID at the start: 14,000 cases and 524 deaths (most in children) in 2024. This is extremely unlikely for a number of reasons.

Addendum: In the 2 hrs since the WHO announced the numbers above at its press conference today, the WHO’s numbers (in a press release) have risen: over 15,600 cases and 537 deaths.

a) This is 20 times higher than the death rate for the 2022-23 monkeypox outbreak

b) Obtaining an accurate death rate in the Democratic Republic of Congo where there are few roads and very little modern infrastructure is impossible. In fact Dr. Ogoina, chair of the WHO expert committee, said in today’s press conference that there is underreporting of cases. He also noted that some deaths were in patients with advanced HIV disease.

c). We were initially told that monkeypox had a 1-10% mortality rate in Africa, which may or may not be true, but the mortality rate in the west was more like 0.1%

Dr. Ogoina also said this is a “new form of monkeypox” with “atypical lesions”—so what we need is to look at the genome and get an idea where it came from.

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On habeas corpus, probable cause, warrants, detention and extrajudicial state killing under declared public health emergencies.

Below are excerpts from email exchanges about HHS-CDC’s demonstrated use of quarantine authorities under 42 USC 264, 42 CFR 70 and 42 CFR 71, to arrest and detain 3,000 cruise ship passengers at US military bases in March 2020, killing at least 10 people while they were held in detention.

Sasha Latypova is working on a second report about this. Her first report was published in June 2024 in video (Jane Ruby interview) and written format:

The information below is from my replies to readers seeking more information about federal quarantine law.

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WHO Director Considers Declaring Public Health Emergency Over Mpox Virus Outbreak

The World Health Organization’s director-general said the United Nations health body is considering declaring an emergency for mpox, also known as monkeypox, amid an outbreak in Africa.

“But more funding and support for a comprehensive response are needed,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on the social media platform X on Sunday. “I am considering convening an International Health Regulations emergency committee to advise me on whether the outbreak of mpox should be declared a public health emergency of international concern.”

By Tuesday, it was unclear when the WHO would declare the emergency or issue any warnings about the virus.

A statement from Tedros published by the journal Science added that “this virus can and must be contained with intensified public health measures including surveillance, community engagement, treatment and targeted deployment of vaccines for those at higher risk of infection.”

“A further scaling up of the mpox response underway in affected countries is urgently needed amid the expanding outbreak,” his statement said, calling for “more funding for a comprehensive response” that factors in diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

A public health emergency of international concern is the strongest designation for an outbreak. Notably, such a declaration was made for COVID-19 during the early onset of the pandemic in 2020.

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Wisconsin ‘Emergency Rule Making’ Is Election Fraud

Independent journalist Peter Bergnegger is calling out Wisconsin election corruption:

Wisconsin Patriots call to action: the Wis. Election Commission and squatter Meagan Wolfe are up to their tricks again – in an email by WEC attorney written by Jim Witecha, he said it was too late to go through the normal rule-making process (required in our state) on election observer rules. 

So he unlawfully declared (paraphrasing) “so we’ll have to do it via Emergency Rule Making”. Citizens there is election fraud right there  – again. As WEC had all kinds of time to address the rules pertaining to election observers if they wanted, years in fact. Instead, they waited until it was too late and then jumped to the use of “Emergency Rule-making.” The election fraud is there is no emergency, they can’t even tell you what the emergency is. Ask them: what is the emergency? And ask them where/when did they publish it? 

It was even ruled in Wisconsin Courts back in 2021 Covid did not rise to the level of an emergency.

WEC purposefully didn’t get their observer rules passed in time for the upcoming very important elections, they now want to cheat by doing a chicken little of “emergency, emergency”. WEC’s strategy is to not have the rules passed before the legislative session closed is their modus operandi…so they can proceed to make emergency rules without going thru the normal process of scrutiny through the legislative process. THERE IS NO EMERGENCY!

The State Legislative Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR), has the power to suspend these emergency rules once published in the admin. register.  Senator Nass (R) and Representative Neylon (R) are co-chairs for this JCRAR joint committee.

Rules are not valid if they exceed the bounds of correct interpretation per Wis Stat 227.11(2)(a).  WEC wants to clarify in these emergency rules: 1) What interactions are permissible between observers, voters, and election officials, 2) How a chief inspector may restrict which areas are open to observers, 3) What may count as disruptive behavior”.  

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