Keep Your Politics Off The Interstate!

The extremist caravans and convoys are back.

The Freedom Convoy finally wasted their fuel and diesel to make it to one of the country's busiest freeways. On top of that, the Washington, DC Metro Police, Maryland and Virginia state patrols were waiting to issue citations for intentional delays of traffic.

Interstate 495, the Capital Beltway is a 64 mile freeway that circles around Washington, DC and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. A portion of the freeway carries Interstate 95, it parent route. 

The highway's peak traffic around 4pm carries 150,000 vehicles.

With states ending mask and vaccine mandates the convoy has other grievances. On top of that, the noise is already being ignored by the tensions in Europe.

Also, Canada has plans to end vaccinate mandates. The United States and Canada still have vaccine requirements before crossing border. They ain't playing.

After the chaos in Ottawa and Windsor at the Ambassador Bridge, the U.S. was preparing for these convoys. These extremists would rather waste their fuel for petty grievances.

Interstate 495 is a major beltway around Washington, DC

The trucker-led convoy group, which was organized on pro-Trump and anti-vaccination channels on the Telegram messaging app, drove around the Capital Beltway, which surrounds metropolitan Washington, D.C. Their plan was to circle the interstate twice and then return to Hagerstown, Maryland, where they gathered Saturday night, to regroup.

Authorities in and around the capital were on alert ahead of the convoy’s arrival. Last month, the Defense Department authorized activating up to 700 unarmed National Guard members to assist with traffic control.

Inspired by protests in Canada, the "People's Convoy" traveled across the country in protest against mask and vaccination mandates to combat Covid-19 over the past two years. Hundreds of people have joined the group since it left on its cross-country journey Feb. 22 in Adelanto, California.

Brian Brase, a convoy co-organizer, said he plans to take members of the protest group to meet with lawmakers Tuesday. NBC News has not verified any planned meetings with lawmakers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the end of February that masks are no longer necessary indoors. Most of the major cities that once required vaccinations to unmask in indoor businesses, such as New York City, have lifted such restrictions in recent weeks.

The return of the convoys for Washed Up 45.

Brase acknowledged the end to many mandates throughout the country. "What the People’s Convoy’s looking for is, we're looking for immediate end to the state of emergency," he said. "We don't believe there is an emergency any longer."

Canadian authorities enacted emergency powers and filed for injunctions after the “Freedom Convoy” created chaos across the country last month. Truckers and joining protesters blockaded U.S.-Canada border crossings and parked in residential areas for about two weeks.

Hundreds of tickets were issued and criminal incidents were reported as Canadians reported feeling unsafe and targeted by some protesters while wearing masks.

Brase described the U.S. convoy as a “peaceful, law-abiding group.”

NBC News reported last week that as Covid restrictions ease and the group’s demands become less pressing, some within the group's Telegram channels have taken interest in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Contingents within the groups, many of them QAnon supporters, have seized on a false conspiracy theory that the war is a cover for a military operation backed by former President Donald Trump in Ukraine.

Extremism researchers expressed fears that the overt QAnon messaging could take over the channels and spread as the initial reasons for the protest lose steam.