The White House’s denial that migrants are walking across the border sparked backlash from Governor Doug Ducey and Border Patrol (BP) leaders.
This week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that illegal immigrants don’t merely walk across the southern border. Fox News reporter Peter Doocy had asked Jean-Pierre why the unvaccinated traveling by plane were refused admission into the U.S. while unvaccinated illegal immigrants could walk into the U.S. and stay.
“It’s not like somebody walks over — that’s not how [it works],” responded Jean-Pierre.
Watch what happens when Peter Doocy asks Karine Jean-Pierre why illegal aliens are released into the country even if they don't have the COVID vaccine, but Novak Djokovic isn't allowed in for the U.S. Open: pic.twitter.com/Jdqmo0IpEN
Jean-Pierre’s denial prompted Ducey to call the White House “clueless.” He stated that the Biden administration’s negligence further affirmed his decision to finish Yuma’s border wall himself. The state closed those gaps last week.
“If only President Biden visited the border, he’d see the mass amount of migrants walking across the border,” wrote Ducey.
The White House is clueless. If only President Biden visited the border, he’d see the mass amount of migrants walking across the border.
This negligence is exactly why Arizona took action to close the border wall gaps near Yuma. 1/ https://t.co/9XQdJe5OJU
The denial prompted similar criticism from the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). Jean-Pierre’s denial — along with discovery this week of BP Chief Raul Ortiz’s admission in July that Biden’s border policies lacked consequences for illegal immigration — prompted NBPC to demean the Biden administration as the “Barney Fife” administration, a slang term for ineptitude and incompetence.
“[This administration is] importing millions of fraudulent ‘asylum’ seekers,” declared the NBPC. “This mess will take decades to clean up, if it can ever be cleaned up.”
We've been saying it for nearly 2 years. The Barney Fife Administration is single-handedly causing the disaster on our border. They're importing millions of fraudulent "asylum" seekers. This mess will take decades to clean up, if it can ever be cleaned up.https://t.co/bzth4Pv4uB
Along with the historic number of illegal crossings, there have been historic highs of drug trafficking. Earlier this month, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reported that fentanyl, meth, and heroin seizures increased greatly from June to July.
CBP Releases July 2022 Monthly Operational Update
In July, fentanyl seizures at Arizona Ports of Entry were up 218% over June. The number of fentanyl seizures also increased by 128%.
As AZ Free News reported at the beginning of this month, hard drugs have largely replaced marijuana for drug smugglers. The main substance seized by far is fentanyl.
NEW: @CBP agents at the Nogales, AZ port of entry seized 625,000 fentanyl pills in five smuggling busts over the weekend, including another 12,000 that were rainbow colored to have a similar appearance to candy or ecstasy. Agents also seized 4lbs of fentanyl powder. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/Orr38BdFXR
What’s more, smugglers are now disguising fentanyl with rainbow coloring to look like candy or ecstasy, dubbed “rainbow fentanyl.” On Tuesday, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued an official warning that the rainbow fentanyl has been discovered in 18 states. Officials warned that drug traffickers are targeting children and young adults with the rainbow fentanyl to spark addiction.
NEW: The DEA has put out an official notice warning Americans of the “alarming” new trend they began seeing this month w/ rainbow colored fentanyl being smuggled into the country & appearing 18 different states. They say cartels are using it to appeal to children & young people. pic.twitter.com/tTtTK85u2B
It appears that the White House isn’t the only leadership sector apparently unconcerned with the state of the border. A source informed the Daily Caller on Monday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was vacationing in Maine.
NEW: A source tells me DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas is currently on vacation in South Casco, Maine while the border crisis continues to get worse and worse every day. He had security surrounding him at a picnic tonight. Yet, our border is being flooded with drugs and criminals.
Arizona State University (ASU) won’t disclose the full scope of its hiring decisions resulting in four women leading STEM-related schools and a department within the last 18 months.
ASU acknowledged a hiring pattern earlier this month when it published a feature article contextualizing the exclusively female appointments as “leading the charge for more diversity in STEM.” The hires were Tijana Rajh, made director of the School of Molecular Sciences; Donatella Danielli, made director of the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences; Patricia Rankin, made chair of the Department of Physics; and Nancy Manley, made director of the School of Life Sciences.
The article doesn’t mention the professional accomplishments of these women. Instead, the article focused on how the women felt undermined in STEM through a glass ceiling, an “old boys club,” bias, and the sexism of male colleagues doubting their abilities. The article did mention the women’s equity-related accomplishments such as organizing panels on women in math leadership and stocking female sanitary products in the bathrooms.
ASU expressed a goal of balancing the proportions of women and men leading and studying STEM-related subjects. However, ASU stated that gender didn’t play a role in their hires of Rajh, Danielli, Rankin, and Manley.
“ASU is out to change those numbers – and, as evidenced by the hirings of Rajh, Danielli, Rankin and Manley — in a meaningful way,” read the article.
.@asuSOLS new director Nancy Manley is the latest in a series of qualified women heading STEM-related units at ASU. https://t.co/wKz1tdO6GX
When AZ Free News reached out to ASU, spokesman Jay Thorne said that the university doesn’t comment on individuals who weren’t hired.
“The four women noted in the story were hired, some of them quite some time ago, in an open competitive process, each from highly credible institutions. Not much else to say that wasn’t in the story,” said Thorne. “If there is another particular angle you are interested in, let me know. Otherwise, the story speaks for itself and the university has no comment about other candidates for these positions.”
When we requested further background on why the four women were chosen at the exclusion of other, possibly male candidates, noting that the entirety of the article focused on the women shattering glass ceilings and overcoming sexism without mentioning any of their accomplishments, this was the only response we received:
“Yep. Understood. Fair enough. Thank you,” wrote Thorne.
Although Thorne wrote that ASU doesn’t comment on those who weren’t hired, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean Patrick Kenney felt it necessary in the article to disclose that men were rejected.
ASU also revealed in the feature article that both tenure and non-tenure track female faculty increased in other STEM areas, namely the School of Molecular Sciences.
This week, Google made its driverless vehicles available to the East Valley public through its ride-hailing company, Waymo One. The artificial intelligence taxi service is available in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, and Tempe.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego was one of the driverless car’s first passengers.
In a promotional video, Gallego said she appreciated that the vehicles are electric, and expressed hope that it would make the city more inclusive.
“There are many people in this community who can’t drive or choose not to,” said Gallego.
This isn’t the East Valley’s first experience with these driverless cars. Google has tested them over the past five years in the area.
One of those test runs went viral last year after the car stalled in a Chandler intersection, blocked three lanes of traffic, and attempted to escape company handlers. The car became confused and stopped because it needed to take a right turn and construction closed off the turn lane with cones. At one point, the car began to back up into oncoming traffic.
The passenger noted that he’d been stranded multiple times before in Waymo’s driverless cars.
Downtown Phoenix will also have driverless cars, but only for Waymo employees and “Trusted Testers,” which are select individuals participating in approved test drives. Unlike the East Valley, the downtown driverless cars will have a Waymo “autonomous specialist” in the front seat.
Waymo is also developing driverless freight transportation through its other initiative, Waymo Via.
Google isn’t the only company testing driverless cars and trucks in Arizona. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) has approved multiple driverless trucking test runs for the company TuSimple, which has ties to the Chinese government.
According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), there are about 3.6 million professional truck drivers in the country. Government estimates report about 8 million people involved in the entire trucking industry. Globally, the industry is worth $4 trillion, and truckers make up about 40 percent of operating costs.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Following the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rejection of a constitutional right to abortion, two Arizona organizations still advertise abortion funding. They’re the Abortion Fund of Arizona (AFAZ) and the Tucson Abortion Support Collective (TASC).
AZ Free News reached out to AFAZ and TASC for comment. AFAZ confirmed that they’ve continued providing abortion funding, but TASC never responded with comment.
AFAZ serves all of Arizona, offering funding on a first-come, first-serve basis according to their monthly budget, averaging 40-50 callers a month. In order to qualify, pregnant women seeking abortions must have an appointment scheduled at an abortion clinic. Pregnancies over 16 weeks gestation are prioritized. AFAZ also offers resources for other logistics: meals, gas, Rhogam vaccine, and childcare funding, as well as transportation and lodging arrangements.
In 2020, AFAZ pledged over $100,000 to women seeking abortions, and in 2021 they pledged over $80,000.
AFAZ launched in 2017 through Pro-Choice Arizona. Pro-Choice Arizona and AFAZ once operated under the NARAL Pro-Choice America network, but achieved independence in 2019. Pro-Choice Arizona is also a member of the Arizona Reproductive Justice Coalition.
Current members of the Arizona Reproductive Justice Coalition include Organized Poder, Parteras De Maiz, and Trans Queer Pueblo. Black Lives Matter (BLM) Phoenix-Metro was one of their past members.
Funding abortion is a radical act of compassion. This year we have seen a drastic uptick in financial need, especially due to the ongoing economic loss and struggle from the pandemic. Become a monthly donor to support abortion access! https://t.co/JP60e1ttkGpic.twitter.com/Jpiz6yWKFH
TASC serves Southern Arizona. In addition to assisting with abortion funding, TASC offers logistical resources such as transportation, legal aid, “abortion doula services,” and walkthroughs of Arizona’s abortion law.
On their website, TASC warns pregnant women against crisis pregnancy centers. TASC claimed that these centers are “designed to intentionally mislead women” with “medically inaccurate information about pregnancy, fetal development, and abortion” and “lies, manipulation, and threatening or intimidating language.” As proof of their claims, TASC links to NARAL Pro-Choice America’s article, “The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers.”
TASC then lists the crisis pregnancy centers in the Tucson area.
Playwright and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, announced earlier this month that TASC was one of the abortion services receiving funds from his “Hamilton”-affiliated campaign to support abortions, “Hamilton 4 Choice.”
The announcement came about a week before Miranda served a cease-and-desist to a McAllen, Texas church for putting on a Christianized version of “Hamilton,” edited to discuss Biblical values.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The two Yavapai County election leaders that made headlines for abandoning office in response to 2020 election-related threats have escaped to other elections-related roles.
Former Yavapai County Elections Director Lynn Constabile became the elections engagement manager last month for a nonprofit founded by former Big Tech leaders and advised by three chief technology officers from the Obama administration, U.S. Digital Response (USDR), and former Recorder Leslie Hoffman became Maricopa County’s director of recording services as of Monday.
Both abandoned their offices about a month before this latest primary election.
Constabile’s new employer, USDR, was co-founded in March of 2020 by its interim CEO, Jessica Cole: formerly a tech policy fellow at the Aspen Institute, an organization integral to the censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story released weeks before the 2020 election.
USDR’s other co-founders were Alex Allain, CTO, formerly an engineering director for Dropbox; Emily Barlow, formerly an engineering program manager and global sourcing manager for Apple; Jessica Watson, formerly a product design director for Facebook; and Raphael Lee, formerly of Lob and Airbnb.
USDR admits that its founding purpose was to intervene in local election processes. Since 2020, co-founder Raphael Lee explained on LinkedIn that USDR has expanded operations to address a whole host of progressive initiatives: criminal justice reform, Afghan refugee resettlement, unemployment insurance reform, federal grant management, COVID-19 government messaging and vaccine distribution.
“In March of 2020, when COVID-19 came to the US, we organized a volunteer-run, non-partisan effort to help federal, state, and local government with technology, data, design, operations, communications, project management, and other needs during the crisis,” wrote Lee. “USDR became a fiscally sponsored nonprofit project in the summer of 2020.”
All three of USDR’s advisors hail were deputy chief technology officers in the Obama administration: Cori Zarek, Jennifer Pahlka, and Ryan Panchadsaram.
Among USDR’s partners is the Arizona Department of Health Services (AZDHS). USDR’s major funders include the Rockefeller Foundation.
USDR has worked with 48 elections offices and nonprofits. Additionally, they report impacting 42 million people throughout 36 states, and worked with over 230 governments and organizations on over 300 projects.
As AZ Free News reported, Big Tech companies took a major interest in the 2020 election as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic arose that March. As one example, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pumped his elections-focused nonprofit with over $350 million to execute what USDR desired to carry out.
In a press release Monday announcing Hoffman’s hire, the Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said that Hoffman was one of the first individuals he relied on when he assumed office.
“Leslie was one of the first people I reached out to upon taking office, and her experience and advocacy for the functions of this office make her a great fit for this position,” said Richer.
AZ Free News reached out to the recorder’s office for further comment on the implication of hiring an individual who resigned from office amid the midterms, days before the primary election. Their spokesman said that they had no comment beyond their press release, just that they were thrilled to have Hoffman’s experience.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
