Story from the Justice Center, a law firm:

The Justice Centre is representing Grace Life Church (Grace Life), a large church near Edmonton, and its pastor James Coates. The congregants of Grace Life hold strongly to their religious beliefs regarding the necessity of gathering in-person to worship and to minister to each other through fellowship and corporate prayer and worship, exercising their Charter freedoms peacefully.  Alberta Health Services (AHS) has ticketed Pastor Coates, taken Grace Life and Pastor Coates to court, and even attempted to completely shut the Church down.

[…]Restrictions imposed in November and December 2020 through the Orders of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, demanded that churches gather at only 15% of building capacity and that all attendees mask and distance from each other.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw doesn’t like people using their freedom in ways she disapproves of.

Surveillance by bureaucrats and armed police:

AHS officials began in November to show up and inspect the Church weekly. Each Sunday morning—during the worship service—an AHS inspector, often accompanied by law enforcement, demanded entry to the building, went into the sanctuary, and recorded the number of people present and whether they were masked and distanced. This has occurred almost every Sunday for three months, with no regard to how disturbing the presence of an AHS inspector and law enforcement is to congregants of Grace Life.

Normal Christian activities are “illicit and bizarre”, according to the secular left nanny state:

On December 17, 2020, AHS inspector Janine Hanrahan issued an order against Grace Life church (the “December 17 AHS Order”) and publicly posted the Order on the internet, intentionally exposing Grace Life to public contempt. Previously normal, healthy activities such as sitting together and learning, playing instruments and singing, and not covering one’s face, are outlawed and described as if they are illicit and bizarre in the December 17 AHS Order and various AHS inspection reports.

Janine Hanrahan doesn’t like people using their freedom in ways she disapproves of.

More:

On January 21, 2021, AHS filed a court application to enforce through court order the December 17 AHS order, and to be given the power to throw Pastor Coates in jail if he continued to lead Grace Life in normal worship services.

[…]On January 29, AHS issued a Closure Order, purporting to entirely close down Grace Life and prevent any congregants of Grace Life from gathering for in-person worship services at the church building.

[…]On Sunday, February 7, after the morning worship service, two RCMP officers met with Pastor Coates and a few others in his office at the Church. The officers told Pastor Coates that he was under arrest and must agree to stop breaching the CMOH Orders.

[…]Grace Life again gathered for worship on Sunday, February 14 and again an AHS inspector entered the Church and reported the activities of the attendees. RCMP have notified Pastor Coates that they plan to arrest him again on Tuesday, February 16, and bring him before a Justice of the Peace, forcing the court to decide if Pastor Coates will be imprisoned.

Just in case you’re wondering what the score is, in terms of sicknesses and deaths caused by this church compared to caused by government, government is “winning” 1-0:

Grace Life is a church of nearly 400 congregants. Not one has been lost to Covid, but, sadly, a congregant was lost to the Alberta Government lockdown in the first week of February when he died prematurely because he couldn’t get the cancer treatment he needed due to Government restrictions.

It’s not often reported how much damage theses restrictions are doing. Not just in terms of missing health care, but depression, suicide, loneliness, and denying children their educations. Canadians continue to pay taxes to teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, judges, police, etc. but they are not getting their money’s worth. There’s an epidemic of VIOLENT CRIME in cities like Toronto. But all the police in Canada have time for is arresting pastors and shutting down churches.

This is why I support smaller government. When you pay money to these people, they aren’t accountable to do anything for you. Why are Canadians paying government workers first, and taking whatever scraps of liberty they’re allowed to have, after? Don’t live under people like this. Move somewhere where they don’t control you. And don’t marry one of these hysterical, low-information fascists and put them in your house to monitor you.

By the way, in case you’re wondering how the pastor is doing, his wife has posted an update: part 1 and part 2. The police will only release him if he stops pastoring his church. No one, including his own wife, is allowed to see him. Learn from Canada.

By the way, this isn’t the first time that a pastor has been arrested for preaching in Canada. It happens a lot.

From the Washington Examiner:

By the time America gets back to work, and traffic jams, gas prices under the Biden administration could be heading back to $4 thanks to new climate regulations, the president’s shutdown of energy mining on federal lands, and overseas production cuts.

Industry experts believe that as the coronavirus vaccine becomes widely available, offices will start to fill up, as will gas stations.

[…]Since Election Day, gas and crude oil prices have jumped. In the United States, gas prices are up 18% and oil nearly 50%.

[…]Every department has been ordered to factor climate change into their moves. In addition, he suspended new drilling leases on federal lands, restricted U.S funds in worldwide carbon energy programs, eliminated “fossil fuel subsidies,” stopped the Keystone XL oil pipeline construction, and slapped a moratorium on federal leases in Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

OPEC and the Saudis have also cut production in hopes of raising prices to offset a year of losses.

Democrat views on energy development and global warming are simple. They think that low-emission, low-cost energy sources like natural gas (fracking) and nuclear are BAD. And they think that high-cost, animal killing energy sources like wind and solar are GOOD.

But does green energy work?

Here’s USA Today:

Platte River Power Authority’s call for customers to conserve energy on Sunday resulted from a perfect storm of energy supply issues as extreme cold created a regional shortage of natural gas; ice and frigid temperatures restricted power from wind turbines; and blankets of snow covered solar panels.

That’s just one green energy state. They have colder weather. So what about a warmer state?

Fox News reports on a state that is heavily invested in green energy:

About half of Texas’ wind power generation capacity has been put on ice amid the state’s historic winter storm, according to a report.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) told the Austin American Statesman that roughly 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ wind generation capacity had been hampered as of Sunday due to frozen wind turbines. However, they also noted that unfrozen wind turbines are spinning at a higher rate than expected, helping to offset the losses.

ERCOT operates Texas’ electric grid and manages the deregulated energy market for 75% of the state,

“This is a unique winter storm that’s more widespread with lots of moisture in West Texas, where there’s a lot of times not a lot of moisture,” ERCOT senior director of system operations Dan Woodfin told the outlet. “It’s certainly more than what we would typically assume.”

It is estimated between 2.5 and 3.5 million people in Texas have been left without power amid the storm’s frigid temperatures.

Democrats believe that big government is the solution to impending doom caused by human freedom and the free market. They believe this in spite of their past predictions being falsified for the last 50 years. They hate to talk about the Medieval Warming Period, when the Earth was much hotter than it is today. I tend to prefer beliefs that haven’t been falsified by evidence over beliefs that make me feel good and look good to people who talk for a living.

Fox News reports:

The New York Times has updated an initial report from last month claiming that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed due to blunt force truma from a fire extinguisher during the Jan. 6 riot.

A new Feb. 12 update can be seen pinned to the top of the Jan. 8 article headlined, “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.”

“New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police,” the affixation states.

As the Washington Examiner notes, additional revisions based on new information surrounding the officer’s death can be seen in another section of the article updated Sunday: “Law enforcement officials initially said Mr. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher, but weeks later, police sources and investigators were at odds over whether he was hit. Medical experts have said he did not die of blunt force trauma, according to one law enforcement official.”

The Times originally characterized Sicknick’s death differently.

“Mr. Sicknick, 42, an officer for the Capitol Police, died on Thursday from brain injuries he sustained after Trump loyalists who overtook the complex struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials,” the Times initially wrote.

On Thursday, a separate Times article rebuked the paper’s original Jan. 8 report.

“Investigators have found little evidence to back up the attack with the fire extinguisher as the cause of death, the official said. Instead, they increasingly suspect that a factor was Officer Sicknick being sprayed in the face by some sort of irritant, like mace or bear spray, the law enforcement official said,” the piece asserted.

Last week, House impeachment managers used the original Times article as evidence in their impeachment pre-trial memo.

Also interesting, this from The Federalist:

“Officer Sicknick is a martyr for democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Feb. 4, following Sicknick lying in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.

Democrats cited the initial Times report in their pretrial memo that apparently falsely claimed “insurrectionists killed a Capitol police officer by striking him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

President Joe Biden repeated the unverified claim Sicknick was killed by Capitol rioters in the first line of his statement about his predecessor’s second acquittal.

“It was nearly two weeks ago that Jill and I paid our respects to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who laid in honor in the Rotunda after losing his life protecting the Capitol from a riotous, violent mob on January 6, 2021,” Biden said.

How soon did the New York Times know that their “news” story needed to be corrected? Before they wrote it?