Innocent Woman Fined $5,000 Returning to Canada from Abroad
By Alexa Lavoie
Rebel News
August 15, 2022
You have probably already heard countless examples of people having traumatizing experiences at Canadian airports with flight delays, cancellations, and even lost luggage. But now, an even bigger threat is hanging over travellers' heads.
Not only do they need to offer up their private medical information to the government-mandated ArriveCan app, but they are also required to get a PCR test and quarantine under the government's surveillance if they are unvaccinated against COVID-19.
And it gets worse – failure to submit your information into the ArriveCan app, failure to respond to a quarantine officer, failure to have a quarantine plan, and failure to provide a proper PCR test can lead to fines up to $200,000 and up to three years in prison.
Hundreds of Canadians are being impacted by this draconian app. And Simone, who was visiting her son abroad, is one of those people.
You can hear her story about receiving a $5,000 fine right here:
This type of government overreach is not something you would expect from a so-called free country like Canada.
Thankfully, Rebel News is working with a Canadian charity called The Democracy Fund (TDF) to fight back.
Civil liberties lawyers at TDF are studying the law and the constitution to see if they can take on a great case against this app.
If you or someone you know has been charged under the Quarantine Act for not using ArriveCan, please go to NoArriveCan.com to fill out an intake form.
There, you can also sign our petition and donate to TDF's legal fund fighting against this punitive app.
Yours truly,
Alexa Lavoie
P.S. If you want to help crowdfund lawyers to challenge the Trudeau government's ArriveCan app, please donate right here or by going to NoArriveCan.com. All donations qualify for a charitable tax receipt through the registered Canadian charity, The Democracy Fund.
info@rebelnews.com
www.rebelnews.com
Inflation Reduction Act Shows Far Left’s Extremism and Elitism
By Daren Bakst / @darenbakst /
The Daily Signal
August 15, 2022
Last Friday, the House passed the misleadingly named “Inflation Reduction Act,” a massive tax and spend bill that illustrates just how extreme and out of touch the left has become.
The vote was along party lines, as it was in the Senate, with no Republicans voting for the bill.
As American families are struggling with inflation not seen in over 40 years, Democrats passed legislation that would likely only make inflation worse. And they had the audacity to call it the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
That’s not just extreme and out of touch, it’s insulting to Americans.
The major spending in the bill is about more than just dollar signs. It’s also about the choice that politicians make between allowing families to keep their hard-earned money or using the force of government to compel Americans to hand those dollars over to the federal government in the form of taxes.
And force is a key issue with this legislation. The bill would radically expand the enforcement capacity of the IRS to collect taxpayer dollars, raising enforcement funding by 69 percent.
The left apparently thinks the public is just clamoring for the powerful IRS to have far more power. And they think Americans will believe that politicians wouldn’t use this new and more powerful IRS to target opponents, despite its history.
The bill would also increase taxes across-the-board–during a recession. As Heritage research has shown, “at least $136 billion of those taxes [overall taxes in bill] would fall ultimately on low- and middle-income families. The average middle-income household would see a tax burden of more than $2,400 from this bill.”
Then there’s the environmental extremism and elitism. It wasn’t long ago that the Green New Deal was seen as so extreme that it was laughable. Well, guess what, here we are, and it isn’t funny.
The bill’s push for electric vehicles is just one example of this extremism and elitism. Despite decades of subsidies, electric vehicles make up just about 1% of registered vehicles. And the federal government’s scheme to prop up electric vehicles is just a big handout to wealthy cronies. As Heritage energy expert Katie Tubb explains:
Of the estimated $7.5 billion in existing electric vehicle credits to be claimed between 2018 and 2022, corporations will take about half. Of the other half claimed by individual Americans, 78% will go to people making more than $100,000 per year. One state leads the pack: California is home to 39% of registered electric vehicles—perhaps unsurprising inasmuch as the state is banning the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles starting in 2035 as part of its radical climate agenda.
Last year, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg captured the left’s electric vehicle elitism, when he reportedly “argued that more Americans should purchase electric vehicles so that they ‘never have to worry about gas prices again.’”
Ultimately, the energy and climate provisions, estimated to cost $369 billion, are all about one thing: control. It’s a far-left effort to dictate what you drive, where you live, how you live, how you get electricity, and what appliances you buy, among other things. And climate change is the pretext for achieving this agenda.
Admittedly, there’s nothing new with the left using climate change as a justification for control or ignoring the incredible pain that its climate policies will cause Americans, particularly low-income Americans who spend far more of their family budgets on gas and heating bills. But what is new is the sheer scope of this bill, packaging such a huge far-left climate wish list into one piece of legislation.
Bill proponents will claim that the pain must be endured. In fact, in May, President Joe Biden stated: “[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger, and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”
So, the left’s solution to the pain of high gas prices is buying electric vehicles or just being strong and enduring it.
When the pain is having to give up season tickets at the Met, the pain isn’t too bad. But the pain from high prices for most Americans–especially low-income households–isn’t about giving up luxuries, it’s about giving up necessities.
And making matters worse, even assuming you buy into the left’s assumptions regarding global warming, this pain is for no gain. As explained in a recent Heritage report, “eliminating all U.S. emissions would [only] mitigate global temperatures by less than 0.2 of a degree Celsius by 2100.”
Unfortunately, the House chose to pass this far-left legislative insult to Americans. So, what should be the next steps for conservatives?
Conservatives need to ensure that the policies in this bill have a very short shelf-life, and proactively promote policies that address the genuine concerns of Americans. This means being laser-focused on addressing inflation by reducing spending and the regulatory barriers that drive up costs throughout the economy.
When it comes to energy and climate, conservatives should remove any government meddling (e.g. subsidies, regulation, mandates) that hinders access to low-cost and reliable energy, thus helping to promote prosperity and freedom. A more prosperous and free nation will improve the lives of Americans both today and in the future.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Daren Bakst analyzes and writes about regulatory policy, trade, environmental policy, and related issues as a senior research fellow in regulatory policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/15/the-inflation-reduction-act-shows-the-extremism-and-elitism-of-the-far-left/
Supersized IRS Will Shrink Liberty
Written by ron paul
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
August 15, 2022
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin recently claimed the 15 percent corporate minimum tax contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, which should be called the Inflation Creation Act, is not a tax increase. Instead, he claimed, the bill simply closes a loophole that allows corporations to avoid paying all the taxes they owe. Despite what Senator Manchin says, the fact is the new minimum tax increases the amount of money some corporations must hand over to the government; in other words, it increases their taxes.
It is common for politicians, policy wonks, and even some libertarians to demonize loopholes for making the tax system too complex, but loopholes are simply ways that individuals can keep more of their money. Loopholes are thus pro-liberty and pro-sound economics.
In addition to raising taxes, the Inflation Reduction Act provides 80 billion dollars to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some of the money will go to improving taxpayer services so, for example, taxpayers may actually talk to a real person who can provide information about the tax law when they call the agency. But, over 50 percent will be spent on enforcement.
The IRS is expected to hire approximately 87,000 new agents. Supporters of the expansion say the IRS will use the enhanced enforcement capacity to target only “the rich.” However, it is not necessary to massively increase the IRS’s enforcement capacity just to go after “rich tax cheats.”
Furthermore, rich people and big corporations can hire attorneys and accountants to make sure they limit their tax liability while staying within the legal limits. They can also fight any attempt by the IRS to make them pay more. Middle- and working-class Americans are unable to afford legions of attorneys and accountants to limit their tax liability or fight the IRS, so they are more likely to pay whatever the IRS demands.
The IRS has a history of disrespecting due process rights of Americans, so creating a new army of IRS agents with a mission to extract more money will lead to massive liberties violations. Given the IRS’s shameful history of harassing the political enemies of whoever holds power at the moment, we should expect the new agents to target opponents of US foreign policy, gun control, government promotion of green energy, and other policies of the current administration.
The IRS recently ran an ad seeking agents who are willing to carry a firearm and use deadly force. This comes after the tax agency’s purchase this year of 700,000 dollars worth of ammunition. Perhaps the agency is worried that the latest attempt to get more taxes from Americans already suffering from the inflation tax will lead to violence, or perhaps the IRS wants its agents to carry firearms to remind taxpayers that the tax laws are backed by the threat of government violence.
The premise behind the income tax is that the government is the true owner of all property and thus has the right to take as much from the people as it desires. Therefore, the income tax, like the other monstrosity created in 1913 — the Federal Reserve, is incompatible with a free society but necessary for an authoritarian welfare-warfare state. To avoid 1984, repeal 1913.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/august/15/supersized-irs-will-shrink-liberty/
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