The immigration crisis is crushing New York City. According to ABC7 news, last week alone 2,900 new “asylum seekers” entered one of the city’s 200 new emergency shelters.
Mayor Eric Adams says the city spends $383 per day per family on food, shelter, and other expenses, which are deemed the migrants’ right to receive for no charge or obligation because well…just because.
The formerly elegant Roosevelt Hotel has been designated the nerve center for services to accommodate the 120,000 illegal immigrants now in the city. Mayor Adams estimates the city will incur a $12 billion deficit as a result of the influx, meaning that “every service in the city is going to be impacted.” Fifteen percent across-the-board budget cuts are seriously looming.
Yet the expenditures are not adequate to address the surge. Immigrants are occupying the sidewalks in front of the Roosevelt, locals are fuming over the takeover of schools, parks, and other public facilities while reports of subway crime are beginning to pop up. Maybe the sanctuary status the Mayor pressed for, when the costs were borne elsewhere, isn’t such a great idea after all.
Mayor Adams correctly points out that since border law is a federal matter, the feds should help alleviate the distress they are causing. What we’re getting instead is outrageous gaslighting. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insists that President Biden has actually done a great job of protecting the border “and you have seen him do that.”
We have? This is the president who unilaterally eliminated policies like Remain in Mexico and Title 42, which effectively reduced the number of illegal border crossings. The result has been a surge of approximately 2.7 million people on Biden’s watch, 260,00 this August alone. That doesn’t include the “gotaways”, who are uncountable, but estimated to number at least 1.5 million during the Biden administration.
It’s no wonder Americas are starting to feel the strains in social services, healthcare, schools, and prisons. Their advocates claim illegal immigrants are an economic boon, but if that were, why do leftist enclaves complain bitterly about receiving them instead of requesting more?
Truth check: immigrants cost taxpayers $150 billion annually and growing. Even worse is the humanitarian crisis caused by cartels victimizing women and children vulnerable to “human trafficking.”
Illegal immigrants are often erroneously referred to in the popular press as “asylum seekers.” That’s a lie. Imaginary asylum seeking is the (very successful) strategy used to circumvent lawful border enforcement. Immigrants not otherwise eligible for entry are coached to say “I feel unsafe” to border agents. That automatically entitles them to an asylum hearing, which, because of the crowding at the border, is scheduled years in the future.
It’s a farce. They pretend to be seeking asylum, and we pretend to believe them. Fewer than 10 percent are eligible for legitimate asylum. Most never show up for their hearing.
Democrats also like to pretend there is nothing they can do about the ongoing border invasion because Republicans once voted against a bill that included additional border funding. But if Republicans were willing to discuss comprehensive immigration reform, maybe we could talk…
That gives away their game. “Comprehensive” reform is a euphemism for citizenship. The Biden administration willingly pays a high price politically for their devastating border policies. The hardships caused by unlimited immigration are causing widespread resentment. An election looms.
Yet they soldier on, refusing to consider even the most reasonable measures to reduce the ongoing surge. There’s only one possible explanation: they are playing the long game, taking hits now to achieve future political domination.
They see the 20 million or so foreign nationals now living here as future Democrats, who they will relentlessly portray as victims if not eventually granted citizenship. The gambit will work again. The American political landscape will be changed forever.
There is a way out. It’s not more money. It’s not more laws. It’s not even a wall. We must simply follow the example of decent, self-respecting nations throughout history and employ the lawful force of government to maintain our sovereign borders.
Follow the Law. It’s doable, it’s moral, and it’s necessary to protect legal immigrants, American citizens, and America’s future.
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.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is abusing New Mexico’s public health laws by declaring a “mass shooting health emergency” and has decided that the right to conceal- or open-carry a firearm for one’s own self-defense is what’s causing a crime wave to sweep Bernalillo County and the City of Albuquerque. Yes, she is attempting to suspend the Second Amendment via an executive order. In so doing, she has crossed the political, legal, and constitutional Rubicon and the end result will be to turn this part of New Mexico into a free-for-all crime zone.
As common sense tells us, what encourages crime is lax enforcement of the law, not draconian enforcement of unconstitutional edicts upon law-abiding citizens. The revolving door criminal justice system to which Gov. Lujan Grisham and her political ilk have subjected the residents of New Mexico has touched off a crime wave that has decent people seeking to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Disarming the residents of Bernalillo County will not make them safer. It will make them victims.
Criminals are criminals because they break the law. They don’t complete ATF screening forms, submit themselves to background checks and waiting periods, and then abide by posted signage that says a certain location is a gun-free zone. No, they break the law by committing wanton acts of violence. They steal, rob, rape, and murder. These acts are already illegal. Clearly, the governor’s executive order will be meaningless to those who perpetrate these crimes.
But, crime is not what Gov. Lujan Grisham really cares about. She simply wants to push her anti-freedom agenda and disarm the good people of Bernalillo County.
Her goals are no different from those of the Southern ex-Confederates who formed the KKK and disarmed freed Black Americans to continue to promote a system of bigotry. Her aims are those of corrupt Northerners who pushed gun control to keep Irish and Italian immigrants from being able to defend themselves from corrupt party bosses and city officials who preyed on them for “protection.” She wants to disarm the people and make them subservient to her political machinations.
At Gun Owners of America, a number of our staff are proud former law enforcement officers. They understand that they swore to uphold and protect the rights of their fellow citizens. The same is true for officers currently serving in New Mexico. They know that the United States Supreme Court has made clear that the right to keep and bear arms applies both inside and outside one’s home.
But, Gov. Lujan Grisham does not care that police have the duty to disobey illegal orders as part of their oaths. Similar to dictators in tyrannical regimes, she expects the rank and file police to just do her bidding. Luckily, some wearing the badge understand this. Local Sheriff John Allen noted that, “This order will not do anything to curb gun violence other than punish law-abiding citizens from their constitutional right of self-defense.” Albuquerque’s Police Chief, Harold Medina, said simply he won’t enforce the order. Now, even the Democrat Attorney General has announced he will not enforce this ban, stating bluntly “I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.”
Despite this, the Governor’s actions still place the residents and visitors of Bernalillo County at extreme risk. While some law enforcement officials have declared they will not enforce her illegal order, the risk still exists for a patriotic American to wind up at the end of an officer’s muzzle if they are willing to enforce this unconstitutional edict. Gov. Lujan Grisham will have officers on the streets under the mistaken belief that anyone in public with a firearm is a criminal.
Far from addressing a crime emergency, the governor has created one with her soft-on-crime policies. Now she seeks to exploit that to pursue her anti-freedom agenda. Her actions will disarm the residents and visitors of Bernalillo County and turn it into a free-for-all crime zone in which the law-abiding public will be made victims. Most dangerously, innocent people could very well be gunned down by police who believe the law-abiding are the criminals. All this while, without even a touch of shame, Gov. Lujan Grisham is protected by taxpayer-funded armed guards. We the people must push back.
Tim Macy is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and serves as the Chairman of Gun Owners of America, a non-profit “no-compromise” grassroots lobbying organization boasting over two million members. His organization has filed suit against the order discussed in this piece.
The U.S. military is facing a dangerous recruitment crisis. It seems to me, the main contributing factor to this crisis has been the Left’s insistence on infusing politics into our military. Under President Biden’s leadership, the Pentagon has been more interested in fighting the culture war at home than equipping our service men and women in their mission of deterring war and protecting our nation.
Earlier this year, President Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo to use taxpayer funds for paid time off, lodging, and travel expenses for military service members and their families to receive elective abortions. A clear example of the Left’s push to prioritize a political agenda over longstanding federal policy, this memo was issued without necessary congressional approvals and in spite of the Hyde amendment, a decades-old federal law prohibiting federal funding for abortion that even President Biden himself supported during his tenure in the U.S. Senate. The simple fact is that the Defense Department has no authority to use our taxpayer dollars to facilitate abortion services—in fact, existing federal law makes doing so illegal.
In response, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has placed holds on the confirmation of certain military promotions to both demand Secretary Austin rescind the policy and also bring attention to the wider issue of the politicization of our military. Rather than addressing these clear problems and violations of federal law, Arizona’s own Senators have continued to play politics, repeat Democrat talking points, or avoid the issue altogether.
It is the policies of the Biden administration that are the real threat to military readiness and undercutting our national defense capabilities, and that is what Senator Tuberville’s holds are rightly pointing out.
As a former officer in the Army, I can tell you Arizona’s veterans and active-duty service members understand firsthand that politicizing the military is a problem—not a solution. Yet, our U.S. Senators in Arizona have both apparently missed that message.
In July, Senator Mark Kelly claimed blocking of certain military promotions “is doing real damage to our national security right now” and that it will “have cascading effects for years.” But Senator Kelly is fear mongering, plain and simple.
Similarly, Senator Kyrsten Sinema has indicated that she wants to find a “middle ground” between Senator Tuberville and President Biden.
When the military prioritizes social justice instead of operational readiness, uses drag queens as recruiting ambassadors, and spends 6 million man-hours pushing DEI and CRT, it’s no wonder confidence in our military has already dropped by double-digits since Joe Biden took office. Common sense would tell you that is no way to foster recruitment.
We can continue down President Biden’s destructive path of turning our military into a social experiment or we can choose a path that helps our military get back to fulfilling its mission of keeping our country safe.
I stand with Senator Tommy Tuberville.
Curtiss Leroy is a resident of Tucson, AZ, and a Heritage Action Sentinel. He is a former officer in the U.S. Army, serving in Alaska and Vietnam.
As host of the Sept. 9 G20 summit, India is ready to defend its use of fossil fuels despite the hostility of some of its guests toward the energy source.
Speaking at a pre-summit conclave organized by local media, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh answered criticism that his country is a large emitter of carbon dioxide from its use of fossil fuels, particularly coal. Calling the criticism ridiculous, he said that “you don’t decide on the emissions depending on the size of the country. A small island will be consuming huge quantities of energy per capita, yet its total emissions will be less. You have to talk about it in per capita terms … The narrative has to change.”
India’s per capita emissions are lowest among the top users of fossil fuels and much lower than the global average. This means many Indians continue to consume energy at a rate well below levels reached decades ago in the developed West.
G20 attendees will include the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and others, whose leaders seek to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in developing nations even though coal and oil helped to produce western wealth in the Industrial Revolution.
“If you have an economy that is growing at 7%, electricity from coal will also grow,” the minister said. “We will meet the energy requirement for our growth because we have a right to grow. The hypocrisy of developed countries is amazing.”
Mr. Singh pointed out the inconvenient fact that renewables are not a realistic alternative to fossil fuels for generating large amounts of electricity. The requirement to back up wind and solar with batteries increases their cost by nearly fivefold, he said.
The cost of renewables is not just an issue in developing economies. Even in the wealthiest countries, wind and solar are notorious for increasing the overall cost of power.
Writer Michael Shellenberger argues that consumers have been bearing much of these costs. For example, he says that “renewables had contributed to electricity prices rising 50% in Germany and five times more in California than in the rest of the U.S. despite generating just 17% of the state’s electricity.”
Availability and affordability of raw materials for batteries are also a growing concern. Contrary to popular claims that the prices of storage systems have declined, data show that their raw materials are becoming more expensive.
According to Energy Storage News, “Lithium-ion battery pack prices have gone up 7% in 2022, marking the first time that prices have risen since BloombergNEF began its surveys in 2010. The finding that average pack prices for electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems have increased globally in real terms … confirms the consequences of what the industry has been confronted with in recent months.”
Given these uncertainties, countries like India will not commit to any ambitious renewable transition goals. This is evident, given how India has been increasing its dependency on fossil fuels while simultaneously increasing its renewable capacity.
While India may give outward signs of interest in renewable energy installations, it will not risk the cost of risking blackouts or stunted economic growth by overreliance on high-cost wind and solar energy.
Vijay Jayaraj is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK.
For local governments—and councils of governments—in Arizona, it appears that creating a climate action plan has become all the rage. Maybe that’s because it pays well.
The latest group to bow down at the altar of the Biden administration’s climate change agenda is the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG). Back in August, MAG received a $1 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program to serve as the lead planning organization for the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro area. The grant requires MAG to develop a priority climate action plan by next March, a comprehensive climate action plan by 2025, and a status report in 2027 after the four-year grant period expires.
But this $1 million grant isn’t the only way MAG stands to benefit…
In boasting about Bidenomics two weeks ago in Milwaukee, President Joe Biden declared that his policies are “restoring the American dream.” Then he went into his creepy whispering mode and assured us “it’s working.”
Huh?
Isn’t a big aspiration of the American dream owning a home? Biden keeps making first-time homeownership harder for young families for two reasons. One is that the overall jump in inflation and the slower increase in wages and salaries means that homes are more expensive. High home prices benefit those who already own their homes, but much of the increased value is due to general inflation, which reached a high of 9% last year and hurts everyone.
A bigger killer for first-time homebuyers has been the steady rise in mortgage rates under Biden. When he came into office, the mortgage rate was 2.9% nationally. Now it is 7.1%, thanks in no small part to the Federal Reserve’s 11 interest rate increases prompted by the $6 trillion Biden spending and borrowing spree in 2021 and 2022.
So now, according to the mortgage company Redfin, just the increase in interest rates on a 30-year mortgage from 5% to 7% means that a middle-income family that could once afford a median-value home of $500,000 can only afford a home worth $429,000. Great, spend more and you get less house. Or instead of a single-family home, you can only afford a three-room condo or a townhouse. If we compare the rates today versus when Donald Trump was president, the typical homebuyer can only afford a house with a price tag more than $100,000 less than three years ago.
What a deal? Maybe this is one reason the size of a new home is smaller than in the past.
Here’s another way to think about the damage done by Biden policies: If you want to buy a $500,000 home today, which is close to the median price in many desirable locations, your total interest payments will be at least $800 more per month. That means over three decades of payments totaling at least $250,000.
Of course, rents are up nearly 20% as well, so for many 20-somethings, this means sleeping in the parents’ basement.
Biden talks a lot about bridging gaps between rich and poor and blacks and whites. But the group that is most handicapped by these interest rate shocks is minorities. Black homeownership is still less than 50% for black households. The Washington Post calls this “heartbreaking,” but they blame racism, not bad government policies.
There’s one other impediment to homeownership for Generation X and millennials. Many 30- and 40-somethings are hamstrung by their existing and expanding debt. Credit card debt is now $1.03 trillion. Half of all families are expected to have problems paying off this debt each month. Delinquencies are rising, which can mean penalty rates of 20% to 25%.
So, if families can’t afford their existing debt, how will they get a bank to approve a $400,000 or more mortgage loan?
An even bigger question is how in the world can Biden call his economic policies a success?
Perhaps Biden has a secret plan to “forgive” trillions of dollars of mortgage debt, as he has already attempted to do with student loans. But that just shifts the debt burden to taxpayers — hardly a solution.
The Biden administration’s assault on homeownership isn’t just harmful to the families that are being priced out of the market. It’s bad for communities and cities around the country. When families become homeowners and set roots in a town, they are much more prone to care about not just improving their own house and maintaining the upkeep and mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, but it gives them a stake in the schools and children in the neighborhood and the quality of the public services. In other words, homeownership gives Americans a sense of Tocquevillian civic pride.
Crime is lower, neighbors are friendlier and everyone’s property values rise when they live in a community of owners, not renters.
There is one reason to feel today’s downward spiral can be reversed. Back in 1980 when Jimmy Carter was president, mortgage rates weren’t 7%; they reached above 17%. Voters rebelled against the economic mayhem and chased Carter out of office. Ronald Reagan came into the White House, and with wiser economic fiscal policies, mortgage rates quickly fell in half and then lower still. It can happen again.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and chief economist at FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of the “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”
