If someone wants to own an electric vehicle (EV), it is perfectly within their right to do so. That’s what it means to have freedom. But EV owners should be the ones to bear the burden of any costs associated with the necessary infrastructure improvements. And they should absolutely be responsible for paying for any excessive demand placed on the grid.
But that’s not the way the left sees it.
As part of its Green New Deal dream, the left has been pushing an agenda that significantly increases the amount of EVs on the road despite slowing demand from consumers and companies like Ford losing billions on them just this year. And Arizona utilities have fallen right in line, planning for 1 million EVs by 2030 while APS alone plans to have a 100% “carbon free” vehicle fleet as part of its commitment to go “Net Zero” by 2050.
As Christmas approaches, Americans are making a list and checking it twice — not to determine who’s been naughty or nice, but to determine what they can afford this Christmas. For all too many of them, the answer is, not much, and certainly not as much as before Joe Biden became president.
That creates a political problem for the president, because even as he’s spent the better part of the past six months touting the benefits of “Bidenomics” (suggesting the word connotes a rising standard of living for the majority), the American people have come to a different far different conclusion. For them, “Bidenomics” means, “I can’t afford it.”
A recent Bloomberg News analysis shows why: A basket of goods for the average family that cost $100 before the COVID-19 emergency costs $119.27 today. “Since early 2020,” says the piece, “prices have risen about as much as they had in the full 10 years preceding the health emergency.”
Electricity is up 25% since January 2020, and groceries the same. A pound of ground beef is up from $3.29 to $5.23; two pounds of chicken breast have risen from $6.12 to $8.44; and coffee has gone from $4.17 to $6.18.
You won’t save any money going out to eat — restaurant food is up 24%.
And getting there isn’t any less expensive, either. After peaking around $5 per gallon last year, gasoline has dropped somewhat, but gasoline prices today are still 60% higher than they were on the day Joe Biden took office.
Because of Biden’s bad energy policies (read: shutting down pipelines; stricter EV regulations; no leases for drilling; and new taxes on coal, oil, and natural gas, among others), energy prices have gone up overall by 30% in less than three years — electricity is up 25%, propane gas is up 23%, natural gas is up 25%, and diesel fuel is up 47%.
Housing, too, is far more expensive, and nearing unaffordable. In January 2021, the monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home was $989. Today, that number has more than doubled, to $2,041. Mortgage rates have more than doubled since Biden took office, pricing many families out of the market – and forcing sellers to pull back and sit on properties they’d prefer to sell, but cannot.
Not surprisingly, American families have turned to their credit cards just to make ends meet. The result: Americans now hold more than $1 trillion in credit card debt. That’s a record high.
It’s no wonder Biden’s approval ratings, and, specifically, his approval rating on his handling of the economy, are down. In this recent survey, he’s at 40% approve, 49% disapprove on his overall job rating, and 36% approve, 61% disapprove on his handling of the economy. A full 76 percent said the economy was either “not so good” or “poor” when asked to rate economic conditions right now. Just 26% of the survey respondents said Biden’s economic policies had helped the economy “a lot” or “somewhat,” while 48 percent said his policies had hurt the economy “somewhat” or “a lot.”
And in this poll’s version of the killer question Ronald Reagan posed in his one debate with Jimmy Carter in October of 1980 – “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” – just 4% say they are “much better off” and 10 percent say they are “somewhat better off” when asked how they have fared since Joe Biden became president.
Policies have consequences, and Americans are suffering under the real-world consequences of Joe Biden’s policies.
It’s bad enough that Americans have to suffer under the consequences of Biden’s bad policies. What makes it worse is that Biden and his administration are doubling down on their bad policies. They refuse to learn from the real-world experience of seeing the results of their policies; instead, they continue to act as if those consequences are not visible to anyone, let alone everyone.
Biden and his Democrat allies know they want more government spending, more government programs, more government regulation, more government power and control over our lives.
Meanwhile, Rudolph goes hungry, because Santa can’t afford to feed his reindeer.
Our family just enjoyed a weekend in Disneyland. We love the Happiest Place on Earth and the opportunity to be lighthearted, spend time together, and play with our granddaughters. On this particular trip, I found myself thinking about the comparisons of how fairy tale storytelling compares to real life.
Does art imitate life, or does life follow art?
One thing that kept coming to my mind is that the villain in every Disney story is seeking to, in some way, control others. The Evil Queen from Snow White wants to take the lives of those who simply want to enjoy the beauty of love, freedom, and happiness. The Wicked Sorcerer wants to enslave or kill those who are simply living their lives. Some of the villains are male, some are female, and others are dragons or even snakes.
Regardless of their form, the one thing they have in common is their desire to control and take something from someone doing them no harm. I couldn’t help but reflect on how I’ve felt this way at times as a Responsibly Armed Citizen who simply wants to protect and defend what I love.
The people who want to chip away at our freedom to keep and bear arms seek what feels like a similar type of control over your life and mine. Oftentimes it comes with a “pretty face” or dressed up in some fashion that makes it challenging to disagree. They call it “smart gun laws,” or “common sense gun control,” and tell you it is “for the children.”
In the world of Disney and fairytales, the antagonists and adversaries often cast their spells using cleverly worded phrases and rhetoric to trick well-meaning people into mindlessly nodding their heads in agreement. In the same way, those who attempt to restrict gun ownership are like modern-day pied-pipers, they siren call their way into the words that spew from the mouths of our favorite Hollywood actors and feisty young politicians. And those of us who haven’t fallen under the spell are oftentimes painted with the brush of being small-minded social outcasts who love our guns more than our children.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, over 2.5 million times each year, lives are saved by people who are responsibly armed. I own and carry firearms for the express purpose of protecting my life and the lives of those I love. In this battle of wits and wills, what are we, the keepers of the truth, to do so that we too don’t willingly tie on our own puppet strings and become one of the Rights Restrictors’ bobble-headed marionettes? How do we save our children and our children’s children from drinking the poison of distorted history and protect this generation and the next from climbing down the steep staircase to the dungeon of gun-control lies?
To break the spell, simply keep asking (and answering) one little word. “Why?” Why do we have a Constitution? Why did our Founding Fathers include a Bill of Rights? Why do the 27 Words of the Second Amendment include the clause “shall not be infringed”? Why did the very first gun control laws come about? And why are the loudest voices that are trying to restrict your rights to self-protection coming from the very people who have armed security protecting them and their children 24 hours a day? Why, if guns are bad, do these people rely on guns to protect them? Just keep asking why, and you will soon see the smoke and mirrors, half-truths, emotional manipulation, and outright lies begin to vaporize as the phantoms they really are.
You and I simply want to live the American hope of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We want to build our little cottage, snip off the puppet strings, and live out the promise of a future filled with freedom. It is important to keep our eyes on the North Star of truth so that we too do not fall prey to the spells of those who want us to fall into the deep sleep of apathy and who seek to enslave us under their heavy boot of tyranny. We must know the truth and constantly plant the seeds of truth. We must every day take up our shield of wisdom and teach the next generation how to use the sword of truth because the villains are many, the villains are loud, and because every villain wants the same thing: control.
Cheryl Todd has an extensive history of being a Second Amendment Advocate. Along with being a Visiting Fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum, she is the owner of AZFirearms Auctions, Executive Producer & Co-Host of Gun Freedom Radio, the founder of the grassroots movement Polka Dots Are My Camo, and the AZ State Director for the DC Project.
The Chinese general Sun Tzu 2,500 years ago wrote, “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles.”
That’s good advice. Unfortunately, America’s media and military leadership feign ignorance of their current enemies. They never use the words “Muslim” or “Islamist” to identity our foes, terms which actually denote who they are and what inspires them. Instead, they use descriptions like “insurgents,” “militants,” or other euphemisms to avoid hurting the feelings of the enemy.
Hamas, who our leaders would like to believe is their ultimate enemy, is nothing more than the representative-du-jour of a vast network established 1,300 years ago with the never relinquished mission of subjugating the West.
Israel, after decades of repeated atrocities, has no choice but to exterminate Hamas if they ever hope to live in relative security. Even if Hamas is destroyed, there are legions of other terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, a more formidable foe than Hamas, ready and willing to step in and carry on the fight.
For the West, knowing our enemy means recognizing how savage and implacable Islamists are, how outside the mainstream of modern humanity. For many Americans it was shocking to read of terrorists laughing as their October 7 victims were raped, burned, or beheaded, often in front of their families.
Yet the same incomprehensible behavior is common in the hundreds of lightly reported Islamist attacks perpetrated annually worldwide. School children in the madrasas are taught Allah is pleased by fanatical hatred and brutality directed at infidels.
It’s hard for Westerners to comprehend this medieval mindset. Negotiations are fruitless because lying to the enemy is explicitly condoned in traditional Islam. Wars of containment are futile, and appeasement is seen only as weakness. Their ultimate goal is conquest, not peace.
Yet the oblivious Biden administration dodders on as if our relations with the terrorists were governed by the Treaty of Utrecht. Our naïveté was on full display in the recent cease-fire/hostage swap which we foisted upon our Israeli allies.
Mentally sound humans feel deep sympathy for the loved ones of a hostage held by Islamists. Because we value human life more than they do, hostage exchanges are vastly one-sided, typically involving from three up to as many as 1,000 Muslim terrorists exchanged for each civilian.
One of those thousand terrorists recently exchanged for one Israeli is now a Hamas leader who warned that “October 7 was just a rehearsal.” Fifty-five percent of the first 117 terrorists released during the current swaps had been held for murder and other violent crimes, while 21 percent were confirmed jihadists.
The hostages we see are quite visible pictures of utter despair. But for each one we can visualize, there are more at risk of being captured when terrorists realize gains from hostage taking. Each of these potential hostages is also a human being with families and lives of their own. They’re just not visible and don’t know who they are yet.
The hard fact is that when we lavishly reward hostage takers, we are condemning others to the same fate. There is no great solution to the hostage conundrum. It’s worth considering, though, that if we had a policy of not negotiating but instead consistently killing or capturing all hostage takers, the practice would eventually cease.
The Biden administration isn’t into hard choices. Sometimes they even seem confused about which side they are on.
In 2021, for example, the Biden administration restarted funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Hundreds of millions of dollars, which had been frozen by the Trump administration, were distributed to Palestinians in spite of State Department concerns that the funds would almost certainly be used for terrorism.
More broadly, Biden has worked assiduously to appease the Iranian regime and its proxies with billions of dollars. This makes as much sense as slipping money to Nazis during World War II.
The cycle of Islamist violence will never end if we continue to subsidize it and prop it up. Instead of timidity and vacillation toward those who want to kill us, knowing our enemy means understanding that we must focus on destroying and defeating this mortal foe.
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.
In September 2023, four DUSD high schools were named 2023-2024 Best High Schools by U.S. News & World Report. Three of the four were also named A+ Schools of Excellence by the Arizona Educational Foundation. Although DUSD has a lot of work to do, school board members across the Valley now have a model for governing with sense and sensibility.
Of course, every free-thinking, constitutional, conservative board member will have progressive dogs nipping at their heels. Such is the case with the uprising of emotional activists after DUSD opted to not renew Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
Save Our Schools Arizona—a leftist group that identifies as a “nonpartisan community based organization”—led the campaign of oppression by posting a hack opinion editorial on social media. Anxiety-ridden constituents (including the director of an anti-God organization) manifested in the comment section with cries of outrage. Wow. I didn’t know saving Arizona schools meant converting every campus into psychiatric medical facilities!
With sensational clarity, Arizona’s Family reported that DUSD’s decision came amid “a fiery exchange after [board] members voted to eliminate the role of social workers within their school district.” Did anybody in the bullpen even watch the November 16 board meeting? I did. Of course, I don’t have a predisposition to rage, so I viewed it as a thoughtful discussion with differing opinions. Board Member Jo Grant blessed me with her deliberate and persistent, social-emotional vantage point. She got outvoted. Where’s the fire?
Board Members Dawn Densmore and Jennifer Drake personally assured me that because ESSER funds were drying up, it was in the district’s best interest not to renew without a financial plan to supplement looming deficiencies. They also confirmed the district would retain numerous student support positions, including psychologists, counselors, and behavior interventionists.
Densmore said, “For me…it’s not a slam on the profession of social workers. I genuinely don’t think all of them [have a leftist agenda]. But at the same time…places of education should not be healthcare institutions. If parents have children who go through issues where they need additional support—and I [personally] had one child who needed it—take them out of school and get them into counseling. I would have never expected the school to take care of that and replace me as a parent in that situation.”
Drake agreed, “It is the parent’s responsibility [to take care] of the health and wellbeing of their child—not the school. When a child is at school, their priority is safety and education. If your child needs mental health or medical services, then as a parent, it is your responsibility to provide that. The school can get outside resources, but having these services inside the school is unacceptable. Taxpayers should not be paying for this.”
Densmore and Drake also emphasized that educators should not bear the consequences of attendance deficits and low test scores when emotional needs become disruptive to learning environments.
In response to the small faction of obnoxious critics who branded DUSD “cruel” and “irresponsible,” Densmore and Drake said, “Parents need to start parenting. Stop using schools as a crutch—for vaccinations, for dental work, etc.…If your kid is sick, whether it’s physical or mental, take them to the doctor. If your kid is suffering mentally, why would you rely on a school [district] for something like that?”
I’ll wrap this up by pointing out that 2020 was America’s Enlightenment period where we discovered a supposed new and improved job function for social workers. According to the National Association of Social Workers, these mental health warriors are now equipped to practice a more inclusive, equitable, anti-racist approach. And they want us to rest assured that no matter what issues students face inside or outside the classroom, affirming their gender-identity and empathizing with their skin color is sure to be the cure.
Seriously, parents, why haven’t you pulled your kids out of Arizona public schools?
For nearly two decades, Tiffany Benson’s creative writing pursuits have surpassed all other interests. When she’s not investigating Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories, she enjoys journaling and contributing to her blogBigviewsmallwindow.com. She encourages average citizens to take on an active role in the grassroots fight for future generations.
Immediately after the Steyer initiative failed at the ballot, the Arizona Corporation Commission began considering their own green energy mandate to completely ban fossil fuel generation in Arizona by 2050. The Commission’s plan was even more radical than the energy initiative, and this time the mandate was being pushed by our regulated utilities, not far left radicals. This caught most observers by surprise—the utilities were among the opponents of the Steyer initiative, and now they were cheerleading energy mandates.
Why the change of heart by our monopoly utility providers? The reason is simple—they knew that if the Commission adopted official policy requiring Green New Deal mandates, they would be guaranteed full cost recovery from their captive ratepayers. After fierce opposition from ratepayers and organizations like the Free Enterprise Club, this proposed mandate was rejected by the Commission in early 2022.
Unfortunately, this victory for ratepayers was short lived. Almost immediately after the Commission voted to reject costly energy mandates, the utilities announced that they would be implementing their clean energy agenda anyway, irrespective of what their captive ratepayers thought about it. This didn’t come as a total surprise, considering these utilities have gone all-in on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and the accompanying “Net Zero” commitments to ban fossil fuels in their SEC filings to shareholders, which our organization began advocating against at the Commission earlier this year.
We told the Commission that if the utilities are allowed to operate under ESG, every downstream policy decision would be shaped by it—ultimately resulting in massive ESG rate hikes for Arizona ratepayers. Based on the energy resource plans submitted by the utilities last month, it appears our predictions have been proven correct…
