Throughout history, wars have been fought over who can control land and what can be done upon the land that is seized. Nowadays, valuable land is often given to foreign adversary powers at the cost of Homeland Security and the good ole American dollar. Arizona is currently one of these battlefields, where foreign powers are trying to seize control within the United States and take away opportunities from domestic businesses.
In 2022, Arizona passed a law stating that China or Communist party officials cannot directly buy land in our state. However, SB 1342 failed to address that anyone who is not a Communist Party member from China can still buy land. While well-intentioned, this bill left a major loophole that can and will be exploited for years to come, especially with heightening tensions across the globe.
China currently has access to 26.2 million acres of Arizona farmland, some of it being close to major infrastructure and military installations. To be clear, all foreign investors from anywhere in China are under the complete and total control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Even if they don’t claim to be members of the CCP, they have access to buy up this land.
In 2021, China owned 30,119 acres within the state of Arizona. This land is held by Walton Industries Group, a company that denied access to NPR about what they are doing with their land. The company also gives access to many other foreign nations to use this land right here in Arizona.
This is a glaring national security risk. These foreign investors’ tactics toward Arizona are not normal business operations. That’s why Arizona needs legislation put forth that will cut off foreign investor access to the farmland mentioned above.
Arizona can be on the cutting edge to put its people first through such legislation. It would be the first of its kind in the country. State Senator Wendy Rogers even advocated for this type of restriction within SB 1342, but unfortunately, it didn’t pass. Since then, the world and state of foreign affairs have changed, allowing for a perfect opportunity to pass this game-changing legislation.
A new bill could be introduced at the legislature, pass both the Arizona House and Senate, and put lots of political pressure on Governor Hobbs to sign. If she did, this legislation would give access to farmland across southern Arizona that would most certainly boost the state economy, especially for the lower and middle classes.
Arizona could be a breadbasket of growth based on a simple release of farmland that right now is open access for foreign investors. There has not been enough economic pressure put upon the Governor in the legislature. Now is the time for the state government to enact legislation before the next election to ensure that Arizona will be playing offense, rather than playing the “bend but don’t break” game that limits enacting effective legislation that helps everyday Arizonans.
Carson Carpenter is a student at Arizona State University, majoring in Political Science. He is the Vice President of ASU College Republicans and has interned for Reps. Gosar and Crane. You can follow him on Twitter here.
We’re less than a year away from our next election, and if Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is serious about doing his job, his primary focus should be on ensuring a process where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. Instead, Fontes has been attempting to implement an Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that is ripe with unlawful provisions all while ignoring a giant (and growing) elephant in the room.
In its last two quarterly reports to the Arizona state legislature, the Secretary of State’s office reported that over 78,000 individuals have been identified on our state’s voter rolls as noncitizens or nonresidents. This number includes:
Over 53,200 individuals who were reported to have been issued a driver’s license or the equivalent of an Arizona nonoperating license ID in another state.
Over 1,300 individuals who admitted to not being a U.S. citizen on a jury questionnaire.
Over 23,600 individuals who admitted to not being a resident of a county on a jury questionnaire.
These numbers should be great cause for alarm—especially when you consider how close some of our state’s races were in 2022—and these individuals should be immediately removed from our state’s voter rolls. So, what did Fontes do in response to this news?
Let us not even pretend otherwise. COVID hysteria was not that long ago, and we remember the “science” that told us standing six feet apart waiting to board the plane was necessary to slow the spread, but then we could sit shoulder to shoulder for several hours on a flight across country.
But fret not, we wore masks, because science. Of course, you could take your mask off to eat or drink, because science. Any point of view to the contrary would be, “attacks on science,” as Dr. Anthony Fauci put it.
Fauci may have exited stage left, but his political playbook permeates the Biden administration. Last week, the White House released its latest “National Climate Assessment.”
Reading the accompanying release, one can’t help but notice the framing of “restoring the vital role of science in guiding the Biden-Harris Administration’s decision-making.” Science!
Once politicians say they are using “science,” especially in the climate debates, hold onto your wallets and your freedoms.
The report’s widely circulated finding is “the US is warming faster than the global average.” That is scary, and it is meant to do just that.
Fearmongering is a vital part of the climate movement, and for the last few decades, we’ve had doomsday clocks and countdowns to the end. We are nearly five years into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s prediction “the world is going to end in 12 years” if we don’t address climate change. Luckily, Joe Biden has spent hundreds of billions of borrowed tax dollars, so maybe the countdown is delayed.
Forgive me for expressing skepticism about the “scientists” who authored this report. The White House may try to convince us “science” says the US is warming faster than the rest of the world, but “science” can say pretty much whatever we pay it to say.
For example, the scientists at the World Meteorological Association assert “Asia is warming faster than the global average.” The same organization contends that Africa, too, “is warming slightly above the global average”.
Not to be outdone, the Cyprus Institute affirms “the Middle East is warming nearly twice as fast” as the global average, which is shocking when you learn Australia is also warming more rapidly than the global average.
So is Latin America, and Europe, and the South Pole, but the real record breaker is the North Pole which is warming “four times faster than the rest of the world.” Wow. Warming absolutely everywhere – and everywhere above average.
The whole is no longer equal to the sum of its parts because “science” demonstrates the average of the sum of the parts is twice as great as the whole. This type of new math accounts for the nation’s $34 trillion national debt.
For one of these climate assessments to be true, the others must be flawed. Which is it? The outstanding question for climate scientists who push this doomsday scenario is this: show your work.
The 1989 UN Climate report boldly proclaimed that entire nations would be underwater by 2000 unless fossil fuels were zeroed out. We did not and yet, here we are.
Clearly the report was wrong. One could say the science was not “settled” yet the same UN in just a few short days will gather 40,000 climate activists in Dubai for COP 28 where they will make the same bold predictions.
It is beyond fair to ask why this time they are correct. What did they change in their assessment? What computer modeling was flawed? Which data set was erroneous?
If climate scientists cannot explain their errors and account for quite blatantly flawed reports, then their writings are no different than any other cult who prophesized the end times. Ten years ago it was the Mayan calendar, today it’s the United Nations. Meet the new cult, same as the old cult.
Yes, science can easily be politicized by people with an agenda. Science told us not long ago, Churches had to close but strip clubs and casinos could remain open, and this would help stop the COVID virus. Science declared ”mostly peaceful” protests for Black Lives Matter were acceptable, but you had to bury your loved ones via Zoom. Top scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Friedman, who warned Americans to stay home also encouraged Americans to join BLM protests.
So much science.
So, this Thanksgiving, be thankful there is no climate crisis, and be thankful that you are smart enough to see through the lies, the fear, and the politicized nonsense. Be resolved to fight against anyone, politicians or scientists, who tries to take your freedom or property under the guise of COVID or climate.
This Thanksgiving, rejoice that you are a free American.
Daniel Turner is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Twitter: @DanielTurnerPTF
Social Security and Medicare are so popular they are commonly known as the “third rail” of politics. Any politician who touches them gets a nasty shock. The politically smart thing for decades has been to periodically increase benefits and not worry too much about adequately funding these supposedly self-sufficient programs
Congress designates SS/Medicare as non-discretionary spending, which allows even fiscal conservatives to earnestly explain that Congress is unable to touch them, not even to reduce the benefit increases they themselves bestowed in the past. Of course, this is ridiculous since Congress could legally eliminate the programs if it chose to do so (not recommended).
As the population has aged and birth rates have fallen, SS/Medicare have descended into serious financial distress. This year, the programs will spend $69 billion more than they take in. The programs’ trustees recently moved the date for expected insolvency up to 2031 for Medicare, 2034 for Social Security.
Yet there is little acknowledgment from the political class that a problem exists. To acknowledge it creates a mandate for making highly unpopular choices. Even Donald Trump, the would be “conservative” leader, has decreed that no part of making America great again will involve touching our major entitlements. The endless quest for re-election continues to dominate decision making in Washington.
Even beyond entitlements, America has a spending problem. The federal government spends about 25% of GDP but only takes in revenues of 19%. The rest is charged off to future generations. With interest rates returning to normal levels, federal debt service will soon exceed $1 trillion a year, roughly what we spend to defend our country.
Why do we continue to spend so recklessly in times of peace and prosperity? It’s partly our perverse politics, where spenders dare opponents to suggest fiscal reforms and then rip them for bringing it up.
It’s also a mindset. Not long ago, families were considered the primary caregivers for each other. It was contemptible to neglect your own.
Americans today believe they are entitled to have government assume what were formerly family duties. Politicians gain millions of grateful dependents and family structure suffers, but there’s no going back.
Federal decision-makers have adopted an all-purpose solution to the problems that plague us: throw dollars at it. Schools failing? Send money. Semiconductor industry struggling? More money. People still living in poverty? Appropriate even more money. Money papers over our problems but affords no actual solutions.
Nobody even talks about the monetary implications of our ongoing border crisis. Over seven million mostly unskilled illegal immigrants breached our borders. Immediately upon successfully registering their fraudulent asylum claims, they expect food, shelter, medical care, transportation, eventually education, and social services all without a thought of paying for them.
The direct and indirect costs are incalculable, but California already reports annual direct expenses of $21.76 billion while Texas pays $8.8 billion and Arizona $3.2 billion.
Yet Democrats contend only more money can solve the problem. Biden and border czar Kamala Harris claim Republicans are responsible for the border mess because they once blocked further spending increases, even though the money goes to accommodate more illegal immigration. It’s time to end this massive farce and lawfully control the border. Democrats will have to find some less costly way to recruit future voters.
Our response to the COVID epidemic was another giant boondoggle. There wasn’t much to do about the virus. Protect the vulnerable, treat the ill, develop a vaccine, and allow it to run its course.
Instead, we embraced an orgy of spending. Trillions went to infrastructure improvements, solar energy, daycare, schools, businesses, and even individuals, all inexplicably in the name of COVID. It didn’t affect the course of the disease, but our descendants will pay for this spree far into the future.
It gets worse. In 2025, the spending caps on Obamacare and other discretionary items are set to expire as are the low interest bonds the government issued when money was cheap. There will be tremendous pressure to spend yet more just to maintain the spending status quo.
Thomas Jefferson, 250 years ago, extolled the benefits of a “wise and frugal” government. We didn’t listen. We will soon wish we had.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced a new program in which the Xi Jinping government will subsidize the building of new coal-fired electricity generation plants. Part of an effort to ensure power grid reliability and stability into the future, NDRC’s notice says the program will commence January 1, 2024.
The program will enable new coal-fired power plants to recover about 30% of their capital costs in just the first two years of operation. The government subsidies will be funded from tariffs directed to operators of coal-fired plants by the country’s various electricity grids, using monies collected from commercial and industrial users.
The new program is just another proof point that China is continuing to increase the pace of expansion of its coal-fired power sector as time goes on. Indeed, a report released earlier this year by Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) showed China permitted more coal-fired power plants in 2022 than it had since 2015, and has six times more coal-fired power plants under construction currently than the rest of the world combined.
Meanwhile, as the Xi government continues its massive expansion of coal-fired electricity to ensure grid reliability, the Biden government in the U.S. remains intent on destroying its own coal sector. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) notes that this effort is being underwritten by liberal billionaire philanthropists like former Democrat presidential candidate and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has now pledged $1 billion from his personal fortune to, as he put it, “finish the job on coal.”
In September, Bloomberg Philanthropies stated, “With 372 of 530 coal plants announced to retire or closed to date—more than 70 percent of the country’s coal fleet—this next phase will shut down every last U.S. coal plant.” The effort also targets cutting natural gas-fired generation capacity by half, and would block any new plants from being built in the future. Noting that coal and natural gas power plants account for 98% of U.S. plant closures during 2023, IER points to the fact that the federal government’s forcing of those closures is now negatively impacting reserve margins on the nation’s power grids.
Until the recent hyper focus on cutting atmospheric carbon dioxide, it was customary for grid managers to work to maintain a reserve of up to 20% of total dispatchable generating capacity to be available to come online during severe weather conditions and other instances during which demand threatens to overwhelm supply. Grid managers are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid blackout conditions as grids become increasingly overwhelmed by intermittent, unpredictable wind and solar capacity at the expense of reliable dispatchable baseload.
The problem of lack of dispatchable reserves was highlighted in a deadly way in Texas during February 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, a series of three severe cold fronts that froze most of the state for almost a week, leading to blackouts in which an estimated 300 Texans died. In the storm’s wake, the legislature and regulators identified a series of issues on the grid and at grid manager ERCOT that needed correcting, many of which were dealt with in that year’s legislative session.
But the grid’s shortage of dispatchable thermal capacity – a long-known issue – was left unresolved that year. The 2023 legislature enacted a ballot proposal (Proposition 7) creating a fund to subsidize the rapid building of up to 10 GW of new natural gas generation capacity in the coming years. It is exactly the opposite approach being pushed by the Biden government and its political funders in the climate alarmist community, like Bloomberg.
Texas voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 7 in the November 7 election. In doing so, Texans rejected the notion that their state, which produces more natural gas than all but two other countries, should ever be subjected to an unreliable, unstable power grid that causes hundreds of deaths during weather emergencies.
Sadly, Americans living in other parts of the country will remain saddled with the destructive Biden approach, with little hope for anything improving until at least 2025.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
If you look up “failure” in the dictionary, it’s probably only a matter of time until you start seeing images of Katie Hobbs’ time as Governor of Arizona. Hobbs kicked off her reign back in January and immediately got off to a rocky start. After being in office for just over a month, Hobbs had her inauguration fund called into question, had her pick to lead the Arizona Democratic Party rejected, and was booed at the 16th Hole of the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
If that wasn’t enough, Hobbs’ nominations for agency directors have been a complete disaster. Her pick to lead the Department of Health Services, Dr. Theresa Cullen, was rejected for her COVID imperialism. Her nominee for Housing Director was rejected due to a history of plagiarism. And she was forced to withdraw her nominee for Arizona Registrar of Contractors, former Democratic State Senator Martín Quezada, over his alliance with antisemitic extremism. It’s no wonder why Hobbs was listed as one of the least popular governors in the nation.
That’s probably why Hobbs is willing to do anything she can to get some good publicity, but her latest stunt was another misfire…and broke the law…
