It's Time To Rebel! This Crap Has To Stop

Pennsylvania counties rebelling against Gov. Tom Wolf's stay-at-home order and will reopen

Counties are allowing businesses to reopen and not enforcing orders that violate constitutional rights.

Mark Makela/Getty Images

 PAUL SACCA

Several Pennsylvania elected officials are rebelling against Gov. Tom Wolf's shelter-in-place order. Some counties will allow businesses to reopen, while others have said they will refuse to enforce any order that violates constitutional rights.

Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It's free!

On March 19, Wolf ordered a statewide shutdown of all "non-life sustaining businesses." On Friday, Wolf announced that 13 Pennsylvania counties could move to the yellow phase of reopening on May 15. There were 24 counties allowed to enter the yellow phase of the coronavirus reopening on May 8, all in the western part of the state.
The yellow phase allows retail, manufacturing, and offices to open, but there are strict guidelines as far as sanitation and limiting gathering to 25 people or less. The yellow phase does not allow schools, gyms, or beauty salons to reopen.
While these 37 Pennsylvania counties will be allowed to reopen partially, the other 30 counties are in the red phase until June 4. The red phase only allows essential businesses to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wolf said, "A target goal for reopening has been set at having fewer than 50 new confirmed cases per 100,000 population reported to the department in the previous 14 days."
Many political leaders of counties in central Pennsylvania are not happy that they were not added to the yellow phase starting next week. Some of the counties plan to open up and defy Wolf's state-mandated stay-at-home order.
Officials from Adams and York counties requested that Wolf allow them to transition to the yellow phase on May 15. On Friday night, York County District Attorney Dave Sunday announced that his office "will not prosecute any criminal citations for alleged violations of the [Governor and Secretary's] orders and regulations … concerning the operation of non-life-sustaining businesses."
"According to all previously identified measurables made by you and your Secretary of Health, York County falls well within all indices and metrics," York County officials said.
In Adams County, there have been 154 confirmed COVID-19 cases and five deaths.
Perry County officials released a letter on Thursday questioning why they were not allowed to reopen with so few COVID-19 cases.
"It is beyond comprehension why Perry County, which had fewer than 40 cases of COVID-19 altogether, was not selected for reopening with the first counties May 8," the letter read. "It is time to rectify this error and allow our business people to get back to work if they choose."
Politicians from Pennsylvania counties told the Democratic governor that they would reopen regardless if they were in the yellow or red phase.
Jeff Haste, Chairman of the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners, said in an open letter that "enough is enough." Haste instructed Wolf to "open the state and return our Commonwealth to the people (as prescribed by our Constitution) and not run it as a dictatorship."
"Here in Dauphin County, 192 (25%) of the 764 cases are in nursing homes, while 24 (65%) of our coronavirus deaths are in nursing homes," Haste wrote. "If you remove the nursing home cases from the equation, 0.2% of the county's general population has tested positive. Not 20%, not 2%, but 0.2%."
Dauphin County is home to the state Capitol in Harrisburg.
Lebanon County officials sent a letter to Wolf informing him that they were transitioning to the yellow phase on May 15, with or without his approval.
"As elected officials of Lebanon County, this letter serves to inform you of our intention to move from the Red Phase to the Yellow Phase of your COVID- 19 Phased Reopening Plan, effective May 15, 2020," the letter read.
"Lebanon County has met the requirement of your original Stay-at-Home order, which was to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 outbreak and allow hospitals the time to gear up for COVID-19 patients," the letter from Lebanon County officials read. "The residents of our county have heeded your instructions to practice social distancing and other mitigation efforts, and as a result our local healthcare facilities do not lack the capacity to effectively treat these patients going forward."
The letter was signed by nine elected officials, all of which are Republicans. County Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz, who is a Democrat, did not sign the letter.
As of Friday, Lebanon County reported 797 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 16 deaths.
Cumberland County's Sheriff Ronny Anderson said his office would not enforce any order that "violates our Constitutional rights."
"The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office will honor our solemn oath to Support, Obey and Defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth," Anderson wrote on the office's Facebook page. "Our Office will stand with the citizens in defense of all of our Constitutional rights! Our Office will not be enforcing any 'order' that violates our Constitutional rights. Sheriff Anderson has stated 'I have no intentions in turning local business owners into criminals.'"
Wolf noted that more restrictions could be added if COVID-19 cases rise.
"Every contact between two people is a new link in the chain of potential transmission. And if the new case count begins to climb in one area, restrictions will need to be imposed to prevent local medical facilities from becoming overwhelmed," Wolf said during a news briefing on Friday. "So, Pennsylvanians should continue to make good choices."
Pennsylvania has the sixth-most confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. with over 57,000, and the fifth-most deaths, 3,717.

The First Instance Of Totalitarism Taking Hold

COMMENTARY

 Share Tweet Email Print

Police State: Woman Pulled Over, Fined $200 for 'Going on a Drive'

Woman Hit with Huge Fine for 'Going on a Drive'

Volume 90%

 

By C. Douglas Golden
Published April 5, 2020 at 10:50am

Share on FacebookTweetEmailPrint

Anita Shaffer needed to get out of the house. The 19-year-old Red Lion, Pennsylvania, woman decided that just driving around in her car on a Sunday evening wouldn’t hurt anyone.

She wasn’t going to see anyone. She wasn’t going to the mall or to the grocery store. Indeed, there was really no place to go at that hour. Just a young woman in a car, driving around for a spell. She wasn’t breathing on anyone. No one was breathing on her. And then she was pulled over by the state police.

According to The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Shaffer has now become the poster child for just how far the stay-at-home order signed by Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf — and, by proxy, stay-at-home orders around the nation — can go.

According to The Patriot-News, the March 29 incident took place when troopers followed Shaffer from another town into Red Lion — 33 miles southeast of Harrisburg — and pulled her over there. Troopers said she had a taillight out and the tint on her windows was too dark.

She was asked if she was on drugs and then told to get out of the car, at which point she says a flashlight was shined in her face. (Keep in mind, this was all being done in the name of preventing coronavirus transmission.)

TRENDING: Watch Dr. Fauci Ridicule Question, Walk Away After Reporter Notes Praise for Communist China's COVID Response

“He asked me if I was aware of the stay-at-home act,” she told the Patriot-News.

“I am aware of it but I didn’t know it pertained to just driving,” she responded.

She says she was told by the trooper that she wouldn’t be fined for the taillight,”but you should be at home during this act that’s in place right now and just get the taillight fixed.”

No need. When she got home, she said, she and her father discovered the taillight was working just fine. I don’t know the particulars of the case, but if it’s true that the taillight was working, I’m guessing the opacity on that window tint was also within state guidelines. Just a theory.

Should this ticket be tossed in court?

94% (1210 Votes)

6% (75 Votes)

“Troopers have been encouraged to use contacts with the public as opportunities to reinforce the necessity to abide by stay-at-home orders,” state police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski told the Patriot-News, while making sure to add that troopers were looking for voluntary compliance to the stay-at-home order.

The citation, according to the Patriot-News, states that Shaffer “failed to abide by the order of the governor and secretary of health issued to control the spread of a communicable disease, requiring the closure of all non-life-sustaining businesses as of 20:00 hours on March 19, 2020. To wit, defendant states that she was ‘going for a drive’ after this violation was in effect.”

Tell me about how voluntary this is again. Oh, and by the way, this is the first citation that was issued by the Pennsylvania State Police during the stay-at-home order. This is apparently the kind of behavior toopers feel urgently needs to be quashed.

“Troopers maintain discretion to warn or issue citations and the decision is specific to the facts and circumstances of a particular encounter,” Tarkowski told the Patriot-News.

Troopers have produced no proof whatsoever that Shaffer had intended to get out of her car — in fact, the only human contact she had during the drive was when she was pulled over — yet she still got a fine of at least $200. If this is what’s being defended as discretion during the stay-at-home order, I’m curious what indiscretion looks like to Tarkowski.

RELATED: AOC Now Coaching People How To Exploit 'Loophole' in Relief Bill

And, as WPMT-TV notes, the governor’s own website says the Pennsylvania State Police is supposed to be informing the public as opposed to enforcement. If this is the case where they wanted to issue a ticket, heaven help us.

Legislators are now asking the governor for some clarification on the matter.

“You erode public trust,” state Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, who represents the county where Shaffer lives, told WPMT  when asked about the citation. “These are really uncertain times for so many people.”

“This is kind of unsettling,” she added. “I’ve had people say, you know, I just want to go out on my motorcycle and go and take a ride, and ask, ‘am I allowed to do that?'”

Tarkowski was asked roughly that question by WPMT and the answer was yes, or maybe no.

“Sunday Drives are not essential travel. Does that mean that everyone who goes for a drive will get cited/warned? Obviously not,” Tarkowski told the Patriot-News.

“There are no roadblocks, checkpoints, etc. Decisions to warn/cite are made based on the totality of the unique circumstances of each encounter. But to reiterate, Stay at Home means stay at home.”

However, as proof that there are moments of wildest irony in these dark times, Tarkowski also said coronavirus was a threat “that we can’t enforce our way out of. It will take everyone in the community working together.”

If authorities are going to resort to enforcement, though, it’ll apparently start with cases like Anita Shaffer’s. Keep in mind, her citation was the first issued by the state police.

“I think this is a little bit over the top,” Neil Shaffer, Anita’s father, told the Patriot-News. “There’s a fine line here but at the same time, we still have some freedom, some rights and liberties and we’re allowed to operate our cars. We’re allowed to go for a walk. We’re allowed to go to the park and we’re even able to go to work” if you’re in government or an essential business, he added.

This is the invariable problem with government receiving a blank check for our trust during the coronavirus pandemic. At the point where $200 tickets are issued to 19-year-olds who just want to go for drives, that trust isn’t being earned. Nothing will make us question stay-at-home orders more than heavy-handed enforcement such as this.

Anita Shaffer, by the way, has pleaded not guilty and plans to take it before a judge. We can only hope she — and common sense — prevails.

So Much For The Lie That Non-Citizens Are Not Voting

More Than 11,000 Non-Citizens Are Registered To Vote in Pennsylvania

 447  75  10  85  624 

 

 

  5

  70 Comment

Only U.S. citizens should be able to vote. That goes without saying. But someone in Pennsylvania apparently didn’t get the memo.

It has come to light that in Pennsylvania, more than 11,000 people who are not citizens managed to register to vote. Even worse, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania used legal tricks to block that information from being released.

“Pennsylvania officials have admitted to finding names of 11,198 non-citizens registered to vote on the state’s rolls — though top lawmakers suspect the number could still be higher,” the Washington Times reported.

Some in Pennsylvania are speaking out against the problem.

“I believe that we need to take action and have those people removed immediately from the tolls. They were never eligible to vote,” Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe said.

And the problem isn’t just that so many people who were not citizens were registered to vote. It’s also a serious issue that the governor was so deceptive that he withheld the information from the public, and did so until after the 2018 midterm elections.

“Making this problem worse isn’t the fact that there are that many non-citizens registered to vote, but that the Governor fought tooth and nail to prevent this information from going public until after the election,” Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw said. “The original investigation took place in plenty of time for the news to be released last year, but the Governor dragged his feet until a hearing was scheduled for December. Once the election was safely out of the way, the Governor withdrew his objections.”

Many might be wondering how in the world a “non-citizen” could manage to register to vote. It’s a good question. What happens is that in many states, people who are not citizens are allowed to get driver’s licenses. And voter registration is often tied to getting a vehicle registration or a driver’s license. So, people who are citizens might register to vote when they get their vehicle registration or driver’s license.

If those numbers of “non-citizens” voting in Pennsylvania seem bad, and they are, they are even worse in Texas, where an investigation discovered that 95,000 people who are not citizens are on the voter rolls, and 58,000 of those voted using those registrations.

“Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “Nothing is more vital to preserving our Constitution than the integrity of our voting process, and my office will do everything within its abilities to solidify trust in every election in the state of Texas.”

It really makes no sense that people who are not citizens of the United States could be permitted to vote. Voting is a privilege, and in this country, it’s a privilege that only citizens should have.

~ Conservative Zone