A year-long study by the Arizona State University Center for American Institutions examining the Department of Defense (DOD) has identified and soundly condemned what the authors refer to as the “Vast DEI Bureaucracy” that has pervaded the everyday operations of the Pentagon and the varied service academies of the U.S. Uniformed Services. Damningly, the report found that the DOD has spent millions in taxpayer dollars creating a culture of “race and sex-based scapegoating and stereotyping.” The study in and of itself is a brutal excoriation of the military under the Biden Administration and “calls for an immediate end to the Pentagon’s multimillion-dollar DEI bureaucracy.”
The study, “The National Commission on Civic Education in the Military,” was compiled by Commissioners Lt. Col. (ret.) Matthew Lohmeier, Karrin Taylor Robson, and John Cauthen, along with a team of ASU researchers who over the past year evaluated, “the history, evolution, and implementation of diversity and equity programs across all branches of the military and military academies.” The final report is titled, “Civic Education in the Military: Are Servicemembers More Prepared for Micro-Aggression or Macro-Aggression?”
Professor Donald Critchlow, Director of the Center for American Institutions, explained the findings in a release provided to AZ Free News, “Our research reviewed DEI policy in the military starting in the nineteen seventies to the modern day and concluded there are far more effective ways to promote unity and respect among military ranks than by spending millions annually to divide servicemembers by their gender or race.”
Critchlow added, “Just as private companies have abandoned the toxic advice of DEI consultants and programs, military leaders should end social engineering based on critical race theory and restore approaches that promote character and merit.”
The report opens with an Executive Introduction in which Critchlow definitively states, “Given its importance, the U.S. Armed Forces should not be a laboratory for social experimentation, especially one based on Critical Race Theory, a contentious and abstract social theory. Yet, as this Commission Report on Civic Education in the Military shows in great detail, Critical Race Theory is promoted within Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training throughout the military from the Pentagon through the ranks and in our service academies.”
NEWS: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Are Necessities in U.S. Military. https://t.co/7WEWrveNcc
A sampling of the most egregious findings includes:
“DEI themes dominate the training and education that members of the armed forces receive about their country. As ‘white supremacy’ and racism have become a central focus of DEI trainings, white supremacist racism is assumed to be the core problem of the nation and of the military.”
“DEI training focuses on rooting out ‘white supremacy’ even though there is little or no evidence that there is a problem of white supremacy in the military. The massive hunt during the stand-down in 2020 located roughly 100 out of a force of 2.1 million.”
“Spending on DEI programming is increasing. The DOD’s allocation for DEI projects jumped from $68 million in fiscal year 2022 to $86.5 million in fiscal year 2023. The Pentagon is requesting $114.7 million for fiscal year 2024.”
West Point Military Academy offers a minor in “Diversity and Inclusion Studies,” with courses such as “Social Inequality,” “The Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality,” and “Power and Difference.” In the course description, the report reveals the courses as “an introduction to the theoretical concepts of post-modernism. This will include a focus on Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Queer Theory.”
U.S. Navy training asserts that servicemembers who reject implicit racial bias are “potential problems” saying, “Participants who refuse to acknowledge how bias has affected their lives or the lives of others may invalidate the experience of those with marginalized identities in the room and cause them harm,” and instructs sailors to “Prioritize a continuing conversation, rather than attempting to shut the conversation down. One suggestion is to acknowledge the bias-denier’s comments and ask for other perspectives from the rest of the group.” A procedure which could be compared to a classic Maoist “struggle session.”
The Army released directives Wednesday prohibiting soldiers from defined extremist activities and guiding commanders on how to handle cases. https://t.co/5JKIPQchKU
As reported by Task and Purpose, an Army directive has been aimed at rooting out “extremism” which includes “requirements set in the 2021 NDAA for service IGs to work with the Deputy Inspector General for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military ‘to establish policies, processes, tracking mechanisms and reporting requirements for allegations of supremacist, extremist, and criminal gang activity in the Army,’” citing a statement from Sean Mackintosh of the Army Inspector General Agency.
As Lohmeier, a former Space Force commander who was removed from duty in 2021 after drawing public scrutiny to DEI training, summarized, “It’s no surprise that young people are turning away from military service in record numbers. As this comprehensive report illuminates, DEI indoctrination has become a core component of military training that begins for officers even at the service academies.” He continued, “How can we be prepared to confront our adversaries if our warfighters aren’t laser focused on the mission but instead are divided and distracted by ideology?”
The report makes several recommendations on how the DOD can remediate the situation and begin to undo the damage. It calls upon the Pentagon to:
“Immediately end the DEI bureaucracy or pursue alternative avenues to affect positive change despite existing policies.”
“Return to the military’s outstanding tradition of merit-based selections and promotions and nondiscriminatory equal opportunity.”
“Make the syllabi for all humanities and social sciences courses taught at our military service academies publicly available.”
“Provide educational training materials to enhance personnel understanding of American philosophy, politics, government, and the Constitution.”
Additional scrutiny of Walter Ringfield Jr., currently under arrest for the theft of an electronic security fob used to access vote tabulation machines from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, has revealed a troubling pattern of implication in criminal actions surrounding Arizona elections.
Caroline Wren, a fundraiser and Senior Advisor to GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Kari Lake, has revealed that Ringfield was named in a 2022 lawsuit between the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) and Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections. The lawsuit challenged the registrations of several of its circulators. Ringfield was identified among those circulators with “multiple infractions against them,” in Exhibit A of the lawsuit by the AFEC.
Hi 👋 @azfec, thanks for highlighting this story. Need your help with something.
In 2022 you filed a lawsuit against Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections challenging the circulator registrations. Per exhibit A in your lawsuit, one of those circulators with multiple infractions… https://t.co/07GHGgaUy8pic.twitter.com/u7Tm0XnyfP
In a post to X, Wren asked three questions regarding Ringfield’s mention in the lawsuit:
Who paid Walter to gather signatures for the Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections campaign?
Has Walter been a signature gatherer for any other campaigns or ballot initiatives in Arizona?
What were the nature of the objections against the signatures Walter turned in in exhibit A of your lawsuit?
Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi offered some answers to AZ Free News, explaining that, “In 2022 Ringfield Jr. worked for Sutton and Smart to collect for Free and Fair.”
Mussi added, “This cycle he worked for a time on the Abortion Initative (through Fieldworks) and is currently registered to collect for the RCV/Jungle Primary initiative (Make Elections Fair) through Advanced Micro Targeting.”
Finally, he revealed AFEC’s objections against Ringfield, “As for the objections we made against Ringfield Jr., they dealt with the fact that he failed to properly register with the Secretary of State as a paid circulator.”
In the complaint filed in 2022 by Mussi, the AFEC alleges, “Signatures collected by certain circulators of the Initiative Petition who were required to have been, but were not, properly registered with the Secretary of State are void as a matter of law. Specifically, these individuals either:
a. Failed to register with the Secretary of State prior to collecting signatures in support of the Initiative Petition, and hence did not strictly comply with A.R.S. § 19-118(A);
b. Failed to provide a signed and notarized affidavit averring to the accuracy of the specific information included in their registration for measure I-16-2022, and hence did not strictly comply with A.R.S. § 19-118(B)(5);
c. Failed to provide on their registration submissions to the Secretary of State a full and complete permanent and (if applicable) temporary residential address—to include the relevant apartment or unit number, if the circulator resided in a multiunit complex—and hence did not strictly comply with A.R.S. § 19-118(B)(1);
d. Misrepresented on their registration submissions to the Secretary of State one or more required items of contact information, and hence did not strictly comply with A.R.S. § 19-118(B)(1); or
e. Failed to provide on their registration submissions to the Secretary of State the statutorily required address for service of process, and hence did not strictly comply with A.R.S. § 19-118(B)(4).”
A search of LinkedIn by Wren also confirmed that one “Walter Ringfield Jr” shows a history of volunteering in 2022 with Our Voice Our Vote, which Wren described as “a far-left wing advocacy group funded by Open Society Foundation,” although this is not reflected by his registrations with the Secretary of State.
In an extensive post to X, Wren outlined that Ringfield also has a previous criminal history and was arrested and charged with one count of theft and criminal damage in 2023 having allegedly stolen $1,800 from a former employer citing VoteBeat and noted that he was entered into a diversion program and was not convicted as a result. It was likely due to this diversion that he was able to pass a background check from Maricopa County.
In case you’re new here or just confused as to what the heck is going on in Maricopa County, here is a quick recap:
On Monday, June 24 the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office @mcsoaz released a statement saying there had been a theft by an election worker at the Maricopa County…
Reporting from the Arizona Daily Independent also noted that Ringfield filed a statement of interest in 2023 to run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat and was also implicated in a June 19 theft from the Arizona Senate Building.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Caroline Wren is an attorney. The story has been corrected.
Authorities from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) are now re-conducting logic and accuracy testing on county election equipment following the theft of an electronic key fob from the Ballot Tabulation Center last Thursday. The suspect, a now-former employee, Walter Ringfield, 27, was terminated from his role Friday and has since been placed under arrest after surveillance footage revealed him pocketing a red lanyard holding the security device. A police report obtained by the Arizona Sun Times stated that “Walter said the job was temporary and he was trying to make it permanent, so he wanted to clean up,” without further explanation.
Ringfield has been charged with counts of both misdemeanor theft and felony criminal damage and is currently being held by Maricopa County. He was denied bail due to a prior criminal history which the Times noted involved allegedly trespassing and stealing from the Arizona Senate Building.
UPDATE: DPS is investigating a theft of some personal items from a Senate employee. The crime occurred at the Senate on June 15th. The suspect appears to be the same individual recently arrested for stealing from Maricopa County. In response to requests from the public, we are… pic.twitter.com/RrNZQ4Q7f4
A county spokesman explained via email to The Center Square, “On Friday morning, when completing a daily inventory, Maricopa County elections workers identified that an item was taken from the Ballot Tabulation Center on Thursday evening, and staff took immediate action to investigate the matter and contacted the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.”
They added, “The stolen item has been recovered but to ensure the integrity of Maricopa County Elections, election workers are reprogramming and re-conducting logic and accuracy testing of all equipment.”
At a joint press conference Tuesday, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner explained that the device is used on election day to access tabulators. Gates told reporters, “So this black security key right here, this is utilized under normal circumstances. This is just used on Election Day. This is for the Election Day tabulators. So the folks who are involved in that going out to the 223 vote centers that we have across Maricopa County on July 30, on primary day. This will be out there. What we do at the beginning of each day, we do an inventory check and make sure that we have all of these black security keys.”
He added, “We did that on Friday morning. We found that one was missing. So immediately, our team and elections, they spoke to all of the people who were working in the ballot tabulation center on Thursday, the day before, and they also reviewed the security camera footage. So we have security cameras, we also have the live stream cameras. They evaluated that, and they determined that the suspect that we’ve been talking about had taken the black security key and put it in his pocket and then removed it from the ballot tabulation center.”
“When people who we have entrusted to work on elections violate that trust, we’re going to act upon it. We’re going to act strongly, we’re going to get to the bottom of it and we’re going to make sure [that] if there’s someone else who decides to do something like this, we’ll be on the phone with the sheriff again,” Gates said.
“We’re not messing around here. This is too important and we know that the residents of Maricopa County and the voters of Maricopa County are trusting in us to make sure that this is a safe and secure election.” The Arizona Secretary of State’s office said in a statement published by the New York Post that actions taken by Maricopa County following the incident should “reassure the public” about the “security measures in place.”
“Our systems are not only designed to detect anomalies but are also supported by dedicated professionals committed to upholding the democratic process. While this event is unwelcome, it speaks the effectiveness of the security protocols built into Arizona’s election systems.”
“The swift actions of the Maricopa County elections staff, including the re-conducting of logic and accuracy tests, builds in extra layers of protection of all affected equipment. This quick response will prevent any potential impact on the upcoming elections. The Secretary of State’s office will collaborate with law enforcement to address and investigate this incident to ensure accountability and swift justice,” the statement concluded.
Maricopa County told the press in a statement that the leadership of both parties were notified Friday of the new Logic and Accuracy testing along with information about the theft and the County’s actions. Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement published by the Times, “The RNC and AZGOP dispatched attorneys and observers on the ground as part of our election integrity program to gather information and promote transparency as the situation developed. The RNC and AZGOP have a long history of engaging in Maricopa County election issues both in the field and in the courtroom, and yesterday’s events are an example of our election integrity program’s capacity to provide real-time legal response when issues arise at tabulation centers. This incident raises serious questions about election security in Arizona that must be answered – we will be constructively engaged with Maricopa County officials to ensure that the remedies to this security breach sufficiently address our concerns.”
Republican Rep. David Schweikert criticized adoption agencies for predatory practices during a hearing this week featuring celebrity Paris Hilton, founder and CEO of 11:11 Media.
Schweikert came to the conclusion through his experience adopting his two-year-old son, the brother of the little girl they’d adopted before him. According to Schweikert’s remarks during Wednesday’s Ways and Means Committee hearing, adoption agencies impose prohibitively expensive adoption fees — even if the mother had just given birth and they had no role in the pregnancy or birth up to that moment, as was in his case.
“Two years ago this week, all of a sudden I’m getting text messages from my office, saying there’s a social worker who needs me to call her. Okay. I immediately assume I have a family member who needs bail money. I call the social worker and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Are you going to come pick it up?’ Pick up what? Apparently the birth mother of the little girl we had adopted six years earlier had walked into the hospital, no prenatal care, substance abuse, and had a little boy. The little boy was very small, and going through withdrawals. […] One of the greatest things that’s ever happened in our lives. But before we were able to walk out of that hospital with him, turns out an adoption agency worker had gotten the birth mother to sign a piece of paper. Now remember, the birth mother had said, ‘Hey, the Schweikerts had adopted my little girl. This is the brother, wouldn’t that be nice if they could be together?’ We were told we had to sign a piece of paper for $40,000 before we were allowed to walk out the door with the baby because the baby belonged to adoption services. How does a middle class family adopt with these types of costs?”
Schweikert reflected on his experience to compare with Hilton’s testimony, which detailed her allegations of inhumane treatment at a congregate-care facility. The congressman concluded that the child welfare system suffers from financial greed.
“Mrs. Hilton actually said something that was brilliant. It’s about the money,” said Schweikert.
Yesterday, @ParisHilton bravely shared her traumatizing experience at a congregate-care facility with the Ways & Means Committee.
Having such a prominent voice express the flaws within the child welfare system is invaluable. pic.twitter.com/6RQkqlRteE
Hilton recounted how she was taken to a youth residential treatment facility at 16 years old. She testified that, under “troubled teen” programs promising “healing, growth, and support,” she had actually faced two years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
Hilton testified she was force-fed medications, sexually abused by staff, violently restrained, dragged down hallways, stripped naked, forced in solitary confinement frequently, and deprived of views of the outside world.
“My parents were completely deceived, lied to, and manipulated by this for-profit industry about the inhumane treatment I was experiencing,” said Hilton. “Can you only imagine the experience for youth who are placed by the state and don’t have people regularly checking in on them?”
As reason for her testimony, Hilton advocated for the reauthorization of Title IV-B, a Social Security Act provision that created two child welfare programs with federal funding under two parts. Part 1 enacted Child Welfare Services while Part 2 enacted Promoting Safe and Stable Families.
Hilton also advocated for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act and again declared support for the Senate Finance Committee’s “Warehouses of Neglect” report.
This latest hearing of the Ways and Means Committee was the latest in a long string of hearings on the subject, more than any in the last eight congressional systems combined per the committee. The committee has been conducting a thorough review of Title IV-B over the past year.
Committee Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, outlined a number of pervasive issues with the child welfare system: inadequate kinship care support, high social worker turnover, excessive bureaucratic red tape, slow hearings and lack of lawyer access for families, remaining barriers for Native American tribal families, high rates of mental health issues in older foster youth, and discrimination rather than support for impoverished families.
Watch Wednesday’s full hearing below:
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In a Monday morning press conference, the Common Sense Institute Arizona (CSI) announced the release of its comprehensive report on “Arizona’s Ongoing Fentanyl Crisis,” for 2024. The prognosis for the state of Arizona is grim with the report detailing the rapidly mounting cost of the fentanyl epidemic in economic terms. From 2015 to 2019 Arizona’s Department of Health Services reported opioid-related encounters in Arizona hospitals skyrocketed from 41,400 to 56,600, an increase of 37%. And the economic cost has leapt to a staggering $58 billion. The US Drug Enforcement Agency has also reported the total seizures of fentanyl in the nation jumped from 6,800 pounds in 2019 to 29,200 in 2024 or by about 320%.
In other key findings published by the Institute, the study found that nationally, the opioid epidemic cost the American people as a whole almost $1 trillion in 2017, with $22 billion of that falling on Arizona alone, and the situation has only become worse in the intervening seven years. Despite the incidence of opioid-related fatal overdoses seeming to peak, they’ve really more plateaued, holding steady at a near all-time high with declines that “have been modest,” and the institute warns “it is premature to assume success in dealing with this crisis.”
🚨 The DEA seized enough fentanyl in Arizona alone to kill every Arizonan 14 times over, if the seizures were of pure fentanyl and assuming a potentially fatal dose is at least 2 mg.
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) June 25, 2024
Turning to the medically focused economic impact of the crisis the institute cited CDC modeling of economic costs associated with use-disorder and fatal overdose with the Arizona Department of Health Services reporting over 56,600 opioid hospital encounters at a total cost to the state system of $676 million working out to about $12,000 per medical encounter.
Touching tangentially on the Biden administration’s border policies, the report also noted that “border states have begun to experiment with enforcement of border security – a role traditionally filled by federal authorities,” and observed that Texas has allocated over $5 billion toward the border while Arizona’s expenditure peaked in 2022 under Republican then-Governor Doug Ducey at $560 million.
The institute wrote, “Considering these figures through 2023 and based on state-reported changes in the rate of opioid use and overdose, inflation, and other cost changes, CSI estimates that the cost of the opioid epidemic in Arizona reached an all-time high last year – a staggering $58 billion. This is more than double the $22.5 billion estimated by the CDC in 2017 when then-Gov. Doug Ducey declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. The surge appears almost entirely attributable to the rise in fentanyl abuse since then, the source of which appears to be Arizona’s porous southern border.”
Glenn Farley, Director of Policy and Research said in a press release sent to AZ Free News, “The fentanyl crisis is not just a public health issue, it’s also a significant economic and social challenge that affects all Arizonans. The $58 billion cost to our economy is staggering and our report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the crisis to better inform policymakers and the public on what we are truly dealing with.”
With the increase in border security expenses and the medical fallout being accounted for, the obvious final element is the most prevalent in lower income neighborhoods as well: crime. Fentanyl addiction of course brings medical crisis and death, but first it often brings a rapid downward spiral into crime, misery, family dissolution, homelessness and violence that has touched nearly every family in Arizona and the nation writ large.
The institute explains, “In 2017, then-Gov. Ducey declared opioid misuse a statewide public health emergency. At the time there were 950 fatal opioid overdoses occurring annually. Today, the number is nearly 2,000 fatal overdoses every year. Crime, too, is on the rise – in Arizona and nationally. Since 2014 the violent crime rate in Phoenix has risen 38%. According to estimates, 25%-50% of all violent crimes are drug-related. Homelessness, too, is on the rise – and despite massive investment, resources are mostly targeted towards housing and shelter, even as homelessness is highly correlated with drug abuse and dependence. Police resources in Arizona have failed to keep pace with the rising demands created by the border, drug, and homelessness crises.”
The report concludes with a chilling reminder that the cost of the opioid epidemic in Arizona is still rising, citing “inflation, widespread availability of the drug at very-low street prices, and continued high incidence of opioid use disorder among Arizonans combined.” As an analysis, the report is thorough and comprehensive in all but one respect which an academic finding cannot possibly satisfy and CSI rightly doesn’t attempt: the crushing, devastating, and brutal human cost that only someone who has lost a loved one to this plague can truly understand.
The study does however, conclude on an appropriately cautionary note: “The battle with fentanyl – in Arizona and nationally – is far from over.”
Arizona’s children may be safer from predators thanks to the work of one Republican state senator this legislative session.
This week, State Senator Janae Shamp touted the signing of her bill, SB 1232, which will “classify sexual conduct with a minor as a class 1 felony punishable by natural life imprisonment if the minor is 12 years old or younger and suffers serious physical injury” – according to the overview by the Arizona House of Representatives.
🚨FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Senator @AZSenatorShamp Champions One of the Toughest Laws in the Nation for Child Sex Offenders
Governor Katie Hobbs signed the bill into law on June 21.
“I’m incredibly grateful for this new law to crack down on these evil crimes. It’s heartbreaking such a law was even needed in the first place,” said Senator Shamp. “If a criminal sexually abuses a child so badly that it causes them serious physical injury, they should NEVER experience the free world again. I strongly believe this, which is why I worked to ensure these offenders face life in prison.”
Shamp added, “We are sending a message to the nation that in Arizona, these wicked acts will not be tolerated, and these monsters engaging in them will face the full force of the law. I dedicated this session to protect our innocent children from these animals, but I know there’s still more work to be done.”
In her press release, the first-term Republican state senator also reminded readers of two other bills she had sponsored this year, that had been signed into law by Hobbs. One was SB 1236, which “will soon require additional level one sex offenders convicted of Dangerous Crimes Against Children to be published on the internet sex offender website.” Another was SB 1404, which “will ensure schools are notified if a parent of a child attending that school is a registered sex offender convicted of a Dangerous Crime Against Children.”
Back in February, this legislation passed the Arizona Senate with an overwhelming 23-5 vote (with two members not voting). The bill received a green light from the Arizona House this month with a near-unanimous 57-1 result (with two members not voting).
On the Arizona Legislature’s Request to Speak system, representatives from Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, Middle Ground Prison Reform, American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, Arizona National Organization for Women, State Conference NAACP, and Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice had signed in to oppose the proposal as it was being considered by the state house and senate. Christine Accurso endorsed the bill.
SB 1232 will go into effect 90 days from the adjournment of the 2024 Arizona Legislative Session, which occurred earlier this month.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
