A middle-of-the-road legislative district in the Phoenix-metro area will be key to deciding the future political makeup of the Arizona State Legislature.
State Representative Seth Blattman, a Democrat, is running for reelection in Arizona Legislative District 9.
The Democrat lawmaker has been endorsed by liberal groups in his reelection bid, including National Organization for Women Arizona, AEA Fund for Public Education, the Progressive Turnout Project, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Save Our Schools Arizona, and Stonewall Democrats of Arizona.
Blattman’s support from the Fonda PAC may be one of the most concerning for voters researching his record and determining which direction they want to see for their district. On August 7, Blattman boasted of this endorsement, saying, “I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet’s future. Together, let’s create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for generations to come.”
I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet's future. Together, let's create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for… pic.twitter.com/qXZVxxZDJs
The mission of the PAC, however, is not as agreeable to a wide swath of constituents. On her website, Fonda writes, “Our planet is on fire and our leaders are failing us, so if we can’t change the minds of the people in power, we need to change the people in power. It is for that reason that I started Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is laser-focused on one goal: Do what it takes to defeat fossil fuel supporters and elect climate champions at all levels of government.”
This PAC asserts that “major solutions are stopped cold: the Green New Deal, Build Back Better, clean energy investments, ending billions in tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry – all because of politicians backed by Big Oil.”
The Green New Deal pushed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC is the same championed by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is one of the most progressive lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. On Sanders’ presidential campaign website, he wrote about the deal, that “the climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.”
Sanders added that as president he would “launch the decade of the Green New Deal, a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity during which climate change will be factored into virtually every area of policy, from immigration to trade to foreign policy and beyond. Part of the details of the Green New Deal, according to Sanders, includes, “declaring climate change a national emergency, commit[ing] to reducing emissions throughout the world, [and] expanding the climate justice movement.”
Though Arizona has so far resisted an extreme move to the globalist agenda of the climate change lobby – thanks, in large part, to its previous Republican governors (Brewer and Ducey) and a Republican-led legislature – Blattman’s recent votes indicate that he might help usher in more of the Green New Deal policies should Democrats retake the legislature alongside Governor Katie Hobbs. He voted against HCR 2050, which would have “constitutionally prohibit[ed] Arizona or any political subdivision or public body of Arizona from restricting the manufacture, use or sale or a device based on the energy sources used to power the device.”
Additionally, Blattman voted against HCR 2018, which would have “prohibit[ed] this state and any city, town, county, municipal corporation or other political subdivision of this state from imposing a fee or tax based on vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle or enacting any rule or law to monitor or limit the vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle.”
Another of Blattman’s endorsements, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also highlights its efforts to fight for the Green New Deal. The organization promotes itself as “a proud supporter of Elizabeth Warren since her first run for Senate and was the first national political organization to endorse her for president in the 2020 election.”
Warren, also one of the most liberal and progressive members of the U.S. Congress, presents herself as a top supporter of the Green New Deal. On her campaign website, Warren writes, “This is a crisis. We need bold, aggressive action. We need a Green New Deal – and we need it now. Elizabeth is proud to be an original cosponsor of Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution, which commits the United States to a ten-year mobilization to achieve domestic net-zero emissions by 2030. It provides the framework for an ambitious effort to transform our economy and save our planet.”
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 9 is one of the most competitive in the entire state, with a 2.6% vote spread between Democrats and Republicans in the past nine statewide elections. In those contests, Democrats have emerged victorious five times, compared to four for Republicans.
Blattman will attempt to return to the Arizona House of Representatives alongside his seatmate, Lorena Austin. The two Democrats are facing off against Republicans Mary Ann Mendoza and Kylie Barber for the right to represent the district in its two slots.
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The catalog of Vice President Kamala Harris’s history on energy policy is as thin as the listing of her accomplishments as President Joe Biden’s “Border Czar,” which is to say it is bereft of anything of real substance.
But the queen of word salads and newly minted presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has publicly endorsed many of her party’s most radical and disastrous energy-related ideas while serving in various elected offices — both in her energy basket-case home state of California and in Washington, D.C.
What Harris’s statements add up to is a potential disaster for America’s future energy security.
“The vice president’s approach to energy has been sophomorically dilettantish, grasping not only at shiny things such as AOC’sGreen New Deal but also at the straws Americans use to suck down the drinks they need when she starts talking like a Valley Girl,” Dan Kish, a senior research fellow at Institute for Energy Research, told me in an email this week. “To be honest, she’s no worse than many of her former Senate colleagues who have helped cheer on rising energy costs and the fleeing American jobs that accompany them. She doesn’t seem to understand the importance of reliable and affordable domestic energy, good skilled jobs or the national security implications of domestically produced energy, but maybe she will go back to school on the matter. No doubt on her electric school bus.”
During her first run for the Senate in 2016, Harris said she would love to expand her state’s economically ruinous cap-and-trade program to the national level. She also endorsed then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s harebrained scheme to ban plastic straws as a means of fighting climate change.
Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told me proposals like that one would lead during a Harris presidency to the “Californication of the entire U.S. energy policy.” “Historically,” he added, “the transition of power from a president to a vice president is designed to signal continuity. This won’t be the case, because a Harris administration will be much worse.”
But how much worse could it be than the set of Biden policies that Harris has roundly endorsed over the last three and a half years? How much worse can it be than having laughed through a presidency that:
As Biden’s successor for the nomination, Harris becomes the proud owner of all these policies, and more.
But Harris’ history shows it could indeed get worse. Much worse, in fact.
While mounting her own disastrous campaign for her party’s presidential nomination in 2020, Harris endorsed a complete ban on hydraulic fracturing, i.e., fracking. She later conformed that position to Biden’s own, slightly less insane view, but only after being picked as his running mate.
Consider also that while serving in the Senate in early 2019, Harris chose to sign up as a co-sponsor of the ultra-radical Green New Deal proposed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. It is not enough that the Biden regulators appeared to be using that nutty proposal and climate alarmism as the impetus to transform America’s entire economy and social structure: Harris favors enacting the whole thing.
As I have detailed here many times, every element of climate-alarm-based energy policies adopted by the Biden administration will inevitably lead the United State to become increasingly reliant on China for its energy needs, in the process decimating our country’s energy security. By her own words and actions, Harris has made it abundantly clear she wants to shift the process of getting there into a higher gear.
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.
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
Rep. Mary Peltola continues to have support among left-leaning American politicos, after emerging victorious in Alaska’s messy open-primary, ranked-choice general voting system in 2022.
Conservative Alaska voters, faced with a contentious field last year, awarded Peltola enough second-place votes to lock in her win.
As a candidate with low name recognition, Peltola committed to bipartisanship, saying she drew inspiration from the late Congressman Don Young. However, her voting record since November has revealed a different story.
Peltola’s support for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as House speaker, casting 15 votes in his favor, was the first big item that raised eyebrows around the 49th state.
She voted against the Strategic Production Response Act and justified her absence during the final vote by claiming she was unaware voting was about to occur.
Peltola voted against the censure of Rep. Adam Schiff, who was the unethical impeachment manager for Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the now-discredited “Russia collusion” attack on former President Donald Trump.
Recently, she joined most Democrats in opposing the National Defense Authorization Act. The rationale behind her “no” vote lies in her desire for culture-war earmarks to fund military transgender treatments and surgeries, as well as paying military women a month of leave for late-term abortions. Peltola has also supported transgender males’ participation in female athletic competitions.
She voted against H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights, and has been advocating for a national railroad strike, urging Starbucks baristas to unionize, and encouraging pizza workers in Alaska to do the same.
Peltola’s consistent absence is notable: She has missed 16 times more votes than the median Democrat House member. In a House with 435 members, she is number 12 for most missed votes.
While she participated in the women’s Congressional Softball game against journalists, she failed to show up for work the next day when almost all amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act were voted on. Her inability to get out of bed deprives Alaskans of a voice in the House.
When she does vote, Peltola votes in line with Rep. Nancy Pelosi 84% of the time, Rep. Ilhan Omar 77%, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 78%. Keep in mind that 53 percent of Alaskans voted for Trump.
Nick Begich, a lifelong Republican who ran for Congress in 2022, has seen enough. He decided to run again after witnessing Peltola repeatedly vote against Alaska’s values.
Although he faces the challenge of overcoming his relatives, who include well-known Democrats, Begich enjoys the continued support of his followers.
But Alaska’s unique method of selecting representatives, introduced with Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, deviates from the rest of the nation. It’s a tangled mess.
The open primary format eliminated the Republican Party of Alaska’s ability to independently choose its candidate for the general election.
Instead, all candidates, whether clowns or statesmen, participate in the same primary ballot. In 2022, this resulted in a massive ballot with 48 candidates.
The top four vote getters from the primary advance to the general election, where voters are then asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. If a voter’s preferred candidate loses, their vote is transferred to their next choice, granting them an opportunity to vote again. In this scheme, some voters get to vote more than once, while others’ votes are counted just one time.
Given the array of choices Alaskan voters had in November, which included three conservatives and one liberal candidate selected in the primary, it remains perplexing how a radical like Peltola emerged victorious.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting had promised that the system would eliminate extremists, but this is not how it worked in real life. Alaskans ended up with a de facto member of The Squad.
Will it happen again?
Begich begins his campaign with a solid base of one quarter of the likely vote this time around. However, with less than a year remaining until the primary ballot is set in Alaska, a lot can happen with campaign hijinks, as we saw in 2022.
Last year, Begich garnered support from major conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works for America, as well as the endorsement of the Alaska Republican Party.
And yet, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is not structured to work well with the ranked-choice voting system, which in a state like Alaska all but guarantees the presence of multiple Republicans on a general election ballot.
This time around, the NRCC can and should focus on highlighting Peltola’s extreme positions to ensure that Alaskans can make a more informed decision in the upcoming 2024 primary and general elections.
For now, Alaskans are represented by a bait-and-switcher who holds some of the most mind-boggling positions in the history of the U.S. Congress. Alaska has the distinction of being the most conservative district in the country to be represented by a Democrat. We can do better.
National organizations like the NRCC, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and Club for Growth will be crucial in helping prevent a recurrence of 2022’s series of unfortunate events.
It appears that Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-09) wasn’t a white supremacist posing a real threat of violence after all.
On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) was captured engaging in a friendly conversation with Gosar. This interaction occurred a little over a year after she accused Gosar of white supremacy and threats of violence for posting a meme video portraying her and other Democrats as slain anime villains. Her claims of fear resulted in Gosar’s censuring and removal from two committees.
So then I says "The combustion engine was actually a miracle of engineering that people take for granted today…" pic.twitter.com/oloHkBjlGo
Ocasio-Cortez later clarified to reporters that the floor conversation with Gosar concerned Democrats’ support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) or Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-08) as House Speaker. She toldMSNBC that Gosar spoke to her to keep GOP leadership “honest,” dispelling McCarthy’s claim that he had Democrats’ support.
On her floor convo with Rep. Gosar earlier, AOC tells me that McCarthy made claims within the GOP conf. that some Ds would walk away to lower the threshold. Gosar was asking AOC for clarification — would she walk away? “We would never do that,” AOC told me. Jeffries all the way. pic.twitter.com/yDsbJjFIPU
The fallout from Gosar’s meme occurred in November 2021. Ocasio-Cortez derided Gosar, insisting that the meme portrayed Gosar’s “fantasy” of killing her. She also claimed that institutions don’t protect women of color.
“White supremacy is for extremely fragile people and sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself,” tweeted Ocasio-Cortez.
So while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me
And he’ll face no consequences bc @GOPLeader cheers him on with excuses.
Outcry from Democrats resulted in Gosar’s censure, which took four hours of debate to reach.
The congressman was removed from two committees: the National Resources Committee and the Oversight and Reform Committee. Gosar’s censure broke an 11-year dry spell for censures. Only two Republicans voted with Democrats to censure Gosar: Reps. Adam Kizinger (R-IL-16) and Liz Cheney (R-WY).
WATCH: Complete remarks by Rep. Paul Gosar (@RepGosar) during House debate on his censure.
"I do not espouse violence towards anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset." pic.twitter.com/a6JI4xxqgt
During the censure vote, Ocasio-Cortez claimed the meme was an incitement to violence. Since the meme’s posting, Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t been subject to any publicized attacks.
WATCH: Complete remarks by @RepAOC@AOC during U.S. House Debate on Resolution to Censure Rep. Paul Gosar.
"What is so hard, what is so hard about saying that this is wrong? This is not about me. This is not about Rep. Gosar. But, this is about what we are willing to accept." pic.twitter.com/nqV8ElU3d3
